Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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17. To ask the Minister for Rural and Community Development if additional funding will be provided to projects supported by the community services programme to make up for shortfalls as a result of Covid-19. [34173/20]

Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party)
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My Department currently supports more than 400 community organisations under the Community Services Programme (CSP) to provide local services through a social enterprise model. CSP funding is provided as a fixed annual contribution to the cost of an agreed number of full-time equivalent (FTE) positions and a manager, where warranted. The CSP co-funding contribution towards employing each FTE is €19,033 per annum and €32,000 per annum for managers.

In response to COVID-19 the Department put in place a €1.2m CSP Support Fund for 2020 which provided additional funding to many of these organisations, ensuring that they could pay their full-time CSP supported employees a maximum of €350 net per week, with a proportionate amount for part-time CSP supported employees.

In addition, to date, 147 CSP supported organisations have also availed of my Department's COVID-19 Stability Fund resulting in payments of over €6m to these organisations.

Pobal, who manage the programme on behalf of my Department, have undertaken a detailed review of the financial position of all the CSP supported organisations, as their ability to generate income has been greatly hampered by the Covid-19 crisis in many cases. The outcome of this review will inform decisions regarding any additional supports that might be required by these organisations. Any additional supports to be provided will be considered in light of available resources.