Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party)
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My Department’s Community Services Programme (CSP) currently supports over 430 community-based organisations, to provide a vast range of local services and to create employment opportunities, 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.

Funding of €1m was made available for an open call under the CSP for specific services in March 2023, which resulted in 14 new organisations joining the programme in December 2023, supporting an additional 13 manager and 23 FTE positions. While there are no further calls for proposals anticipated at this time, interested organisations can provide contact details for a nominated person to be held on file should the programme open for new applications in the near future. Details should be sent to the following email address csp@drcd.gov.ie.

In addition, my Department also announced a new call for applications for Additional Funding Requests in September 2023, specifically for organisations currently funded under the CSP programme. Due to the high volume of applications received by Pobal in response to this call, the assessment process has taken longer than anticipated.

The applications are currently under review and it is expected that recommendations will be made by my Department in May, with applicants notified of the outcome of their application after that.

It should be noted that any additional funding will be considered in light of available budgets.