Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein)
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872. To ask the Minister for Rural and Community Development if she will increase funding for community, voluntary and charitable organisations to cover the substantial cost associated with the introduction of the Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Act 2024, which comes into force in January, as employers will be obliged to provide 1.5% of employees’ salary as a contribution. [36785/24]

Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party)
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The Government's five-year strategy to support the community and voluntary sector, Sustainable, Inclusive and Empowered Communities, was published in 2019. This is a whole of government strategy led by my Department, which is implemented collaboratively with the sector through the Cross Sector Group on Local and Community Development.

This Strategy reaffirms the Government’s commitment to supporting the sector, whilst also recognising the reality of finite resources and the need to ensure that available resources are focused on providing effective services. The strategy includes a commitment to develop a sustainable funding model to support the community and voluntary sector.

While my department provides funding to some community and voluntary organisations, it is not the primary funder for many of those organisations. Furthermore, my Department does not have a direct mandate to set the terms of the funding arrangements put in place for what is a wide array of diverse programmes and schemes, most of which are managed and funded from other Government Departments. The terms and conditions of funding agreements with the community and voluntary sector are therefore a matter for the Government Department or Agency which administers the relevant programmes or schemes.

My Department is aware of the challenges facing organisations in the Local and Community Development sectors around the costs of employment. It has taken steps in relation to our own programmes to ensure that sustainable funding models are in place. For example, five-year multi-annual funding contracts were issued to 420 organisations funded under the Community Services Programme in early 2023 and the funding rates have been increased over the past two years to take account of the increased cost of employment, in particular taking account of increases in the statutory minimum wage

The date of commencement of pensions auto-enrolment has not yet been decided by Government and I understand that proposals in this regard will be brought forward in the near future. The impact of increases in the costs of employment, including the impact of the introduction of auto-enrolment, will be kept under review by my department in respect of the programmes and schemes which are under its remit.