Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)
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491. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if she will provide information regarding the reasoning behind the decision by the Citizens Information Board that volunteer information officers would not return to their normal work when citizen information centres reopened in autumn 2021 and Covid rules were relaxed, and the decision that from 31 August 2022 these volunteer information officers could not return unless they accepted a reduced administrative role; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [24821/23]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The Citizens Information Board (CIB) is the statutory body with responsibility for the Citizens Information Service (CIS), under the aegis of the Department of Social Protection (DSP).

CIB provides funding to eight independent regional CIS companies that operate the national network of Citizens Information Centres.

Section 7(1) of the Comhairle Act 2000 (as amended) charges CIB with the provision of independent information, advice and advocacy services. This statutory independence is to ensure that individuals receive impartial services and is also to ensure that Government cannot unduly influence the information or advice offered by CIB, nor dictate how it should provide services.

Similarly, each CIS is a limited company overseen by a Regional Manager and a Board of Directors, who make decisions independently on the delivery of services in their own regions; this includes in relation to staffing and volunteers.

Any staffing or operational decisions in the CIS are therefore a matter for CIB and the CIS independent companies. The Minister does not, and cannot, direct them in this regard.

In relation to your specific query, in 2022, my Department was informed by CIB that the independent regional CIS companies, acting jointly, developed an interim volunteer strategy and this was implemented by each company in their respective areas in a different manner. My Department was informed that this interim strategy was to support the effort to re-engage volunteers in the CIS after the pandemic years. Neither I nor my Department were involved in the development of this interim strategy.

As stated in previous PQ responses, I absolutely recognise and value the important work carried out by volunteers in the CIS and I have been very clear to CIB that it is important that the voluntary ethos of CIS be maintained and the volunteers utilised to the maximum extent possible. To this end, and given concerns raised last year on the future role of volunteers in the CIS, I requested CIB to conduct an independent review of volunteering in the CIS, which was recently completed and published.

I welcomed this independent review, which endorses and confirms the important role that volunteers play in delivering the essential Citizen Information services delivered across the country, including the provision of advice to customers. It is now a matter for the eight independent CIS companies, with the support of CIB, to implement the report’s recommendations in order to see a welcome return of more volunteers to Citizens Information Centres. I hope to see the return of volunteers as quickly as possible.