A boost for Ireland’s social investments
Community centres, sports facilities, childcare, museums,
art centres for the disabled, housing for the elderly, addiction treatment
clinics, food cooperatives: these are some of the wide-ranging initiatives made
possible thanks to funds raised by Ireland’s Social Finance Foundation (SFF), a
charity set up by the Irish government in 2007. Banks in Ireland, which hosted
the CEB’s annual Joint Meeting in 2022, have not catered sufficiently for such
social projects with direct lending, particularly since the financial crisis.
SFF aims to generate a social impact while invigorating Ireland’s social
finance sector. It is entirely funded by leveraging financial markets to
provide wholesale funding for two social lending organisations, Community
Finance Ireland and Clann Credo, which lend to community, voluntary and social
enterprises, usually without a need for personal guarantees or early repayment
penalties. SFF has a small staff and its directors are unpaid volunteers. Over
1 600 social organisations have benefitted from its loans, worth €163 million
since 2007.
The CEB loan facility of €20 million, approved in July 2022, enables SFF to scale up its lending operations to such borrowers, hold down interest rates and diversify its funding base – it is SFF’s first loan from an international financial institution. The loan should benefit from an InvestEU guarantee, and will focus on improving living conditions, notably in rural areas, and supporting job creation by social enterprises. The project is expected to have a low carbon footprint and a portion of funds is committed to investment in climate mitigation.
Photo: Protest over affordable housing on O’Connell Bridge, Dublin.
©CEB 2023
