Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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2672.To ask the Minister for Rural and Community Development if she will review and reverse the decision by Pobal not to grant additional community services programme funding to a resource centre in Monaghan (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter. [31894/24]

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 local social, economic and environmental services through a social enterprise model, providing a contribution towards the cost of CSP supported staff in organisations.

I understand that the organisation in question is currently in receipt of CSP supports for one manager and two full time equivalent (FTE) positions at the medium rate of funding, resulting in a current annual contract value of €81,350.

An application window for funding for additional staff posts to existing CSP funded organisations was opened on September 1^st2023 with a closing date of 29^thSeptember. Pobal, who manage and administer the programme on behalf of my Department, received a large volume of applications from CSP supported organisations.

All applications received were reviewed by Pobal for completeness to ensure that all the required documentation was submitted with the application and they were then considered carefully against the eligibility criteria. Applications that were deemed eligible were then assessed against the selection criteria of the Programme as outlined in the application guidelines, with recommendations submitted to my Department.

On 18th June, I approved €1 million in funding to support a further seven manager positions and thirty five FTE positions, in 32 existing CSP supported organisations.

I understand that the organisation in question submitted a request under this Call for Applications seeking additional funding. Unfortunately, their application was deemed ineligible as they did not provide Pobal with a copy of their Annual Financial Statement for 2022, within the required timeframe.

I am advised that on 29^thSeptember 2023, Pobal issued an email to the organisation requesting this document in addition to a number of other items in order to complete their application. Although the applicant responded to elements of this request for information on 2^ndOctober, they informed Pobal that their Annual Financial Statements in respect of 2022 would not be accessible for another two weeks. I understand that Pobal did not receive the organisation's 2022 Annual Financial Statements until 30^thJanuary 2024, at which point the application was already determined to be ineligible for consideration during the application assessment process. Under the call guidelines, late or incomplete applications were grounds for deeming the application ineligible.

It was the responsibility of the organisation to ensure that all necessary documentation required for an application process were sent in on time. This decision cannot be appealed since this crucial document, the 2022 Annual Financial Statement was not received before the assessment process was completed.

While I am advised that Pobal’s recent letter notifying the organisation of the outcome of their application contained a reference to the 2023, rather than the 2022, Annual Financial Statements, this was an error on the part of Pobal, as the 2023 documents would not be required from the organisation until mid-2024 at the earliest. This error did not have any effect on the decision in this case. Officials in my department have raised this matter with Pobal in order to ensure that such errors do not occur again. Pobal have advised that they intend to write to the organisation to correct the error in the previous correspondence.