Election 2020

Social Enterprise

Social enterprises make a valuable contribution to our social and economic programmes through the creation of jobs and the delivery of a range of services in communities across Ireland. Fine Gael will build on Ireland’s first ever National Social Enterprise Policy for Ireland and provide additional supports to social enterprises to help them to increase their social impact.

Support the Community, Voluntary and Social Enterprise Sectors

Volunteering is embedded in the national culture and Ireland has an international reputation as being a nation that gives. Ireland depends on volunteers in areas across our society. Social Enterprise is an innovative model of using business acumen to achieve broader social goals. With sufficient state supports and prioritisation, the sector has enormous potential to expand and grow employment numbers.

We will:

• Increase to €2m (€0.8m increase) the annual budget for the implementation of measures in the Sustainable, Inclusive and Empowered Communities strategy.

Sinn Féin priorities:

• »  Implement the National Development Strategy for the community and voluntary sector

• »  Facilitate growth with the social enterprise and community co-operative sector through our newly established Co-Op Development Agency

• »  Developaframeworkforcollaborativeworkingbetweenvoluntaryorganisations and their statutory counterparts

• »  Provide additional supports and guidelines for charities seeking to merge or collaborate

• »  Convene a working group to include sector representatives and relevant Government departments to develop a multi-annual funding structure – a simplified compliance and regulatory environment and a professionalenhancement support similar to that provided by small businesses by Local Enterprise Offices

• »  Amend Charities Act to include the ‘Advancement of Human Rights’ as grounds for charitable tax exemption

• »  Increase the number of Community Employment places by 1,000 at a cost of €5.4 million

• »  Continued support and funding for Community Grants, Leader and Small-Scale Rural Projects (Clár) appropriate to the needs of our communities

• »  Protecting and upholding the 7 core LEADER principles and putting in place adequate programme supports – including ring-fencing core Local Development Companies’ budgets – for this purpose

PROMOTING ETHICAL ENTERPRISE

Labour will legislate to ensure that co- operatives, limited-profit companies and social enterprises can access all State supports and grants on the same basis as limited companies.

Labour will require businesses and public agencies above a certain size to publish their carbon footprints in their annual reports.

Labour will require businesses and public agencies with 50 or more employees to publish their gender pay gap in their annual reports, as well as the remuneration of top executives and the gender breakdown of company directors.

Labour will require transparency about the beneficial ownership of businesses, along the lines of reforms introduced in the UK. All businesses in Ireland will be obliged to publish Ireland-specific statements of profit, not joint reports with their UK operations.

support the creation of more social enterprises such as the Rediscovery Centre, Food Cloud, and Recreate Ireland . We would also examine how the tax code or a preferential commercial rates policy could help promote better second-hand markets and repair businesses.