News

The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine and Donegal TD, Charlie McConalogue, today confirmed that 87 Donegal voluntary and community providers will receive total funding of €625k from the Government’s ‘Inflation Fund’.

Commenting, the Minister said “Voluntary organisations are incredibly important to providing care to our most vulnerable people. They’ve faced a difficult few years and the Government has committed to helping with this funding announcement. I thank all of these groups in Donegal and all of their workers and volunteers for all they do for our communities.”

Community-based and voluntary health and social care providers are being allocated the funding on a once-off basis as part of Government measures to ease cost-of-living pressures.

At Budget 2023, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform announced funding to assist various sectors with costs related to energy inflation, including €100 million targeted at “a range of Health funded bodies including nursing homes, hospices and Section 39 organisations”.

Last year presented challenges to our economy and society as a whole. In the wake of COVID-19, and as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the country has experienced a dramatic increase in the prices of goods and services, particularly but not limited to energy costs.

The Department of Health has worked with the HSE to finalise a scope and basis for distributing this funding amongst relevant provider organisations. This is now agreed, and payments will shortly commence.

This is a once-off payment in recognition of inflationary cost increases incurred over the course of 2022, and the impact of these on the cost of delivering the services under each organisation’s relevant agreement with the Department of Health.

More detail on how the fund works is set out in the accompanying document.

All eligible organisations will shortly receive a letter from the HSE confirming the amount that they will receive and the terms of the fund.

A full list of the organisations within scope of the fund and the amounts each will receive has been published alongside this statement.

ENDS