Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I might interject. I have worked in a voluntary capacity for 20 years and have managed voluntary organisations. Each such organisation has a different context. We are dealing with financial institutions, which have a determined context.

Regarding the issue of voluntary assistants, Mr. Charles Handy - an Irishman who is one of the major international authorities on establishing and managing voluntary organisations - would assert that there are different tiers of volunteerism within organisations, be they the credit union movement, the Simon Communities or local GAA clubs. One can bring kids to a match, be a manager, be on the board, etc. The essence of what Mr. Handy describes as a psychological contract, that which engages people to do voluntary work, is the reward that they get for their voluntary engagement and the need they meet by engaging. If this triangulation works, it leads to greater voluntary participation with the organisation.

I have managed voluntary organisations comprising 100 or 120 people, some of whom were bank managers, some of whom were on the dole. They did their voluntary work because it gave them a type of reward that they did not get in their day-to-day employment, their retirement, their unemployment, etc. It gave them a sense of having done something worthwhile. As laid out, the difficulty with the voluntary assistant provision is that it does not recognise that someone can engage in a credit union in various ways that are not in conflict with one another. If someone enjoys his or her voluntary work with the credit union, he or she will want to volunteer further.

Will the Minister re-examine the provision before Report Stage? Financial conflicts of interest can arise, but the purpose of voluntary engagement, if it works, is to engender further engagement. What the Minister is proposing tends to run contrary to what was laid out in the voluntary White Paper of approximately ten years ago and to the general voluntary ethos of voluntary organisations across the country.