Ireland's new rich should contribute to a new State-backed fund offering cheap loans to community groups and voluntary organisations, Minister for Finance Brian Cowen has said.
Household wealth has increased on average by 350 per cent over the last decade and "we have over 30,000 millionaires", the Minister said, though a culture of philanthropy has yet to develop.
Mr Cowen was speaking at the launch yesterday of the Social Finance Foundation (SFF), set up with the help of €25 million worth of backing from the banks.
SFF will be led by Peter Quinn, a former president of the Gaelic Athletic Association. It expects to be disbursing money by May to organisations such as Clann Credo and First Step, which will investigate applications from the community groups.
"It is clear that many people have become exceptionally wealthy. Many of these individuals recognise their good fortune and the fact that a great many others have not been so lucky.
"A lot of these individuals are very keen to explore ways in which they can contribute directly to the creation of a better society we all want to see emerge from the economic transformation," he went on.
The new body, he said, would act as "a catalyst" for deeper involvement by the State's richer sections to ensure that a long-term stream of funding will be available for social projects - though none of this would mean any reduction in the Government's backing for community development, the Minister insisted.
The other members of the board include Diarmuid Bradley, director of education of the Institute of Bankers and former president of the Irish Banking Federation; Cyril Forbes, deputy chairman of Jardine Lloyd Thompson Ireland Limited; Gerard McGee, a member of the board of the Irish League of Credit Unions and chairman of Mohill Community Development Association; Sheila Nordon, executive director of Irish Charities Tax Research Ltd; Felix O'Regan, head of public relations and public affairs at the Irish Banking Federation; and Kathleen Prendergast, a community and enterprise worker and president of Tipperary Credit Union.
Mr Quinn said "tremendous work" had already been done over months to set the foundations for the new body, which is "necessary despite the fantastic economic prosperity of recent decades".
Social finance - which offers cheap loans to organisations that can produce a revenue flow to pay them back, is one of the fastest-growing forms of finance in the world, he told the gathering.
Paying tribute to the Minister for Finance's "vision" for supporting the concept so strongly, Mr Quinn said community organisations likely to benefit from the foundation's loans had helped their communities greatly over recent years.
Saying that he felt like "the rich uncle" at a wedding, the president of the Irish Banking Federation, Richie Boucher, said: "Our members are extremely supportive of this initiative, and are happy to contribute both the funding and the expertise of the banking sector to ensure that this excellent initiative achieves maximum impact in communities throughout Ireland."
