Voluntary Sector Dail Éireann — 2025-12-11 ============================================================ Jerry Buttimer (FG), Cork South-Central I thank Deputy McGreehan for raising this very important matter. I thank her for speaking up, advocating on behalf of volunteering and referring to the forthcoming second national volunteering strategy. As the Deputy rightly said, in Irish society volunteering is part of who we are. It is woven into our communities, our culture and our sense of identity. From the GAA pitch to the soccer pitch to the parish hall and from community gardens to climate action, people living in Ireland have always understood that a strong society is built not only by Government or policy, but by people who look out for one another - our volunteers. The gift given by volunteers is priceless. It changes people’s lives for the better and makes our country and our communities, as the Deputy said, a haven and a place to call home. Volunteering keeps our communities resilient, compassionate and hopeful. As Members will know, the first national volunteering strategy was launched in December 2020. It was developed in collaboration with stakeholders from the sector across the country. It is a whole-of-government framework to support volunteers, their representative groups and a range of not-for-profit organisations. It comprises five strategic objectives with 56 associated actions aimed at achieving its vision of "a society where volunteering is [not just] promoted, [but is] valued, facilitated and supported so that people can contribute to developing and maintaining vibrant, inclusive and sustainable communities". The Government has allocated increased funding each year to implement the strategy. Funding has risen from €3.1 million in 2020 to €7.3 million last year. This includes core funding for the network of volunteer centres across Ireland, and for Volunteer Ireland, a national advocacy body. Funding is also made available each year to support capacity building in volunteer-involving organisations, and to carry out research and projects to support the implementation of actions in that strategy. Additional supports for volunteering were provided during the Covid-19 pandemic and additional funding for the volunteering response to the Ukraine crisis, broadened to include integration generally, has been provided since 2022, with €1 million provided each year in 2023, 2024 and 2025. As the first strategy comes to a close, and having engaged with the sector and met Volunteer Ireland, I note there is a commitment in the programme for Government to publishing a second national volunteering strategy. Our Department of Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht is currently working to develop that new strategy. A review of the approach taken in the first strategy has been commissioned from TASC, the Think-tank for Action on Social Change. That work is ongoing and is focused on consultation with the community and voluntary sector and other stakeholders. That is well under way. This continues the collaboration and co-operation that has characterised the current national volunteering strategy. I hope we will have a second one as well. I heard the remarks made by Deputy McGreehan and I will certainly feed them back into the review. Our Department has supported volunteer centres across the country to consult with their volunteers and volunteer-led organisations and officials. We have seen officials from our Department travel across the country to receive feedback and input from each of the volunteer centres. Deputy McGreehan is right. She referred to County Louth, but the volume and value of what is being done by our volunteer centres across the country is extraordinary. In addition to what I referred to already, meetings have also been held with national stakeholder organisations, including Volunteer Ireland, the Local Development Companies Network, Comhlámh and the Irish League of Credit Unions, among others, to hear their views. Officials are collaborating with The Wheel and Sport Ireland to consult with their many stakeholder groups on priorities for the new strategy. In conjunction with the Department of Children, Disability and Equality, young people involved in Comhairle na nÓg have also been consulted to gather their views on the issues. To ensure that the new strategy is a cross-governmental policy, a series of bilateral meetings will be held with Departments to ensure volunteering under each area is reflected. In conclusion, while the process of consultation is still under way, I do not wish, as Minister of State with responsibility for volunteering, to anticipate the areas that may be focused on in the new strategy. I can guarantee to Deputy McGreehan, however, that the second strategy will build on the progress we have made through the first one, strengthening our long-established volunteering infrastructure and continuing to progress areas of best practice to ensure that support for and recognition of the value of volunteering is sustainable into the future. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-12-11/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:48+00:00 Sitting date: 2025-12-11