Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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186. To ask the Minister for Rural and Community Development the current and capital expenditure allocated to each volunteering initiative and scheme administered by his Department in each of the years 2016 to 2018 and to date in 2019; the amount expended in each such volunteering initiative and scheme annually in tabular form; and the number of persons employed in the sector. [39250/19]

Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent)
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My Department provides a cohesive framework of support for the community and voluntary sector. This programme supports 21 Volunteer Centres, 8 Volunteer Information Services in areas which do not currently have a full-time Volunteer Centre, as well as a number of national organisations such as Volunteer Ireland and Young Social Innovators.

Details of the allocations and amounts paid to the Volunteer Centres are set out in the following table. These allocations are paid in two annual tranches.

Not included in the table are two additional once-off grants provided in 2018, as follows: €85,000 for Boardmatch Ireland for the development of an on-line portal and training tool for potential Board members; and €115,000 to Volunteer Ireland for the upgrading of I-VOL and the development of an I-VOL smartphone app.

My Department does not collect data on those directly employed in the volunteering sector. However, I can inform the Deputy that there are approximately 29,000 non-profit organisations in Ireland, 9,900 of which are registered charities. Research commissioned by the Charities Regulatory Authority (CRA) and carried out by Indecon in 2018 found that these charities directly employ 189,000 employees, with 100,000 of these directly supported by public funding.