Ms Yvonne McKenna:

No, there is not. There is a volunteer centre in Cork. The Chairman is right in saying that they will be best known where they are based. They would support all the organisations around Cork through outreach. The figures we are giving the joint committee today are the individuals who have found out about volunteering through us and went through our systems. We do not count the number of organisations that we are supporting at arm's length or who already have their own volunteering networks.

The 15,000 people who will register to volunteer through us this year represent just a drop in the ocean compared to the numbers who want to volunteer and who the volunteer infrastructure will support indirectly.

It would be great if Ireland did count volunteering and we can do that through the census or national quarterly household surveys. If we had a sense of the extent to which volunteering occurs, as well as its outcomes and impact, we would probably take it a lot more seriously than we do.