Ms Yvonne McKenna:

I will highlight a point made by Mr. Cotterell. We should remind ourselves of the true value of volunteering. Mr. Cotterell gave a great example of an individual. I am quite aware that I am speaking to the converted here. There is nobody in this room who has not arrived at his or her current position without the support of volunteers.

When we take a step back and examine the impact of volunteering, we realise it is good for individual volunteers, the recipients of volunteering, community and voluntary organisations, the sector, the community and society. Recipients of volunteering are those who are receiving direct services from volunteers, including entertainment. Across the gamut, from the most vulnerable to the most invincible, we are all recipients of volunteering whether we know it or not. For the volunteer, volunteering provides an opportunity to express oneself, practice skills and develop new ones. It helps one on the journey towards or out of employment. It is an important element of community development.

What is common across all areas of volunteering, be it fund-raising to develop a website or training a football team, is the connection with other people. Volunteering presents an opportunity for us to become part of something bigger than ourselves. Literally, that is the meaning of life. What keeps us alive is our connection to other people.

The community and voluntary sector would not exist without volunteers. Volunteers are really the research and development element of community and voluntary organisations. They allow us to provide more and better services. When volunteers take on certain roles, there is really no comparison with the paid employee. In that respect, I am thinking of some of the advocacy services, for example.

Volunteering is also important to the recipient community. The extent to which communities have strong networks of volunteers or high levels of volunteering makes them more questioning and also more equal. We should not forget the extent to which volunteers remind us of the kinds of services we otherwise fail to provide. With respect to the State, although we do not measure volunteering in Ireland, we know that in the developed world the value of volunteering is considered to be anything between 2% and 3% of GDP. That is a significant figure for our country. However, it is beyond that as it is what we cannot count that matters. It is no longer radical or outlandish to say GDP is not the only measure of the wealth of a society.

To conclude, it is our belief that we should take volunteering seriously. If we want to do so, we should have a more strategic and structured approach to supporting volunteering. In our mind, that involves protecting what has already been built up and also seeing a future for it with respect to a policy that will set national priorities and objectives on which we can deliver. I thank the members for their time. We are available to take questions or further comments.