Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party)
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My Department's Community Services Programme (CSP) supports over 420 community-based organisations, to provide local services through a social enterprise model. CSP provides an annual co-funding contribution towards each full-time equivalent (FTE) position being supported, and, where warranted, towards the cost of employing a manager.

Qualifying organisations must be social enterprises capable of generating income from their activities in order to meet the full salary costs of the supported posts, for example, from income received from the public use of facilities and services.

A new call for applications under the CSP was launched on 6^thMarch last with two pre-application support workshops provided to potential applicants under Strand 2 on 21^stand 28^thMarch, to ensure organisations were fully equipped with the information that they needed to apply for this funding.

Following the pre-application supports, organisations were invited to submit a short concept note to Pobal outlining their proposal for assessment against the objectives of the call and organisations will then be informed whether their proposal fits with the call. The deadline for receipt of concept notes under Strand 2 was 14th April.

Pobal have commenced their assessment of these and it is expected that their recommendations will be submitted to the department for approval in mid/late May. Following review by Pobal and the Department, successful organisations will be invited to participate in the formal application process. It is expected that organisations will receive notification of the outcome in June.