As Minister of State at the Department of Rural and Community Development, I launched a public consultation process today for the draft National Volunteering Strategy 2020-2025.
Volunteers make a vital contribution to Irish society, developing communities as vibrant, inclusive and sustainable places where people want to live.
The purpose of this strategy is to recognise, support and promote the unique value and contribution of volunteers to Irish society.
The strategy will serve as a road map for the future promotion and development of volunteering in our communities.
The development of this strategy started with a call for input paper last year to seek the views of the public as to what the Strategy should contain.
The responses received and the contributions from the National Advisory Group on Volunteering, a collaborative stakeholder engagement group chaired by myself, have greatly informed the development of this Strategy.
From the very beginning of this process, we committed to give a voice to all stakeholders in the drafting of this important Strategy.
This second opportunity for public consultation is another integral step in ensuring the voices of all participants are represented in the finalised Strategy.
I would urge everybody with an interest in volunteering to take this opportunity to feed into the development of this Strategy for the future of volunteering in Ireland.
The draft Strategy is available on https://www.gov.ie/en/consultation/fc55b9-public-consultation-on-draft-national-volunteering-strategy-2020-202/
The public consultation will be open until the 31st January 2020 and submissions can be forwarded:
By email to [email protected]
or by post to: National Volunteer Strategy, Department of Rural and Community Development, Trinity Point, 10-11 Leinster Street South, Dublin 2, D02 EF85.