A Roscommon man says he believes a parish benevolent fund which is operating in the south of the county could be rolled out nationwide.
Billy Kelly was the main organiser of the Lecarrow Benevolent Fund which was established in 2001 and which has raised over half a million euro to help people in need in the area since that time.
The fund is run by a local committee and works closely with the local parish priest in deciding on where to allocate funds.
One of the charities main fundraising events takes place this weekend with a social gathering in Lecarrow on Sunday evening incorporating a major auction and a raffle.
Billy Kelly says the funds go to help individuals who may find themselves in financial difficulty, as well as to help other local groups in the surrounding are:
What we basically do is where people get sick, we organise traveling expenses for them, fuel vouchers to get them to Dublin or Galway.
We've looked after Roscommon Hospital there, we've put a crank cycle into th Heart Unit. We've put in some tablets for the elderly.
We also look after the psychiatric unit there in Roscommon. Obviously people who go into the psych unit, the HSE supply nothing to them, we supply toiletries and all that sort of stuff.
