Tom Neville (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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79. To ask the Minister for Rural and Community Development the status of plans to develop a national volunteering strategy; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15230/19]

Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent)
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My Department's Community and Voluntary Supports and Programmes provide a cohesive framework of support for the community and voluntary sector. €3.5m is being provided in 2019 under this programme to support 21 Volunteer Centres, 8 Volunteer Information Services in areas without a Volunteer Centre and a number of volunteer-supporting organisations, such as Volunteer Ireland.

Last December, I launched a Call for Input paper on Volunteering which was the first step in developing a national volunteering strategy. This was designed to inform stakeholders about the proposed development of the volunteering strategy and seek their views on what constitutes volunteering and what the strategy should contain.

My Department is currently collating the information received following this Call for Input exercise. Among the topics under consideration in this context is the issue of volunteering support infrastructure and how best this can be structured to support volunteering.

Also under consideration is a proposal to establish a National Advisory Group which will be tasked with developing the strategy. It is anticipated that the first meeting of this group will be convened in Q2 2019 and that the draft strategy will be completed later this year, following which there will be a further opportunity for the public to input on the matter before the strategy is presented to Government for approval.