Policy & Strategy

An ambitious new ten-year national policy designed to support vibrant and sustainable island communities was launched by Minister for Rural and Community Development, Heather Humphreys this morning.

A new in-depth report ‘Social Enterprises in Ireland: A Baseline Data Collection Exercise’ has provided vital insights into the sector in Ireland for the first time. The data collected shows that there are currently 4,335 social enterprises in Ireland employing 84,382 people – three per cent of the Irish workforce.

Minister Joe O’Brien, as chair of the ‘Roadmap for Social Inclusion’, has issued a reminder that the deadline for submissions on the mid-term review of the strategy is fast approaching on October 7th.

The 13th OECD Rural Development Conference, hosted by Ireland’s Department of Rural and Community Development (DRCD) has kicked off this morning in County Cavan. Overnight, a large team led by Department's Dr. Andrew Forde put the finishing touches to conference arrangements and delegates arrived to a momentous Céad Míle Fáilte this morning.

Cavan tonight began to welcome 400 people from as far away as Canada, Korea, Latvia and Columbia for an international gathering of rural development workers, policy makers, academics and ministers and their officials. They are in town to attend a major conference titled ‘Building Sustainable, Resilient and Thriving Rural Places’.

As Budget 2023 is moved forward to September 27, Changing Ireland examines some of the key proposals of groups working in the social inclusion and community sector.

Major reforms to Community Employment (CE), Tús and the Rural Social Scheme (RSS) have been widely welcomed, with one public representative saying he had seen "grown men crying" when they had to leave schemes.

Mary Hurley has been appointed as the new Secretary General at the Department of Rural and Community Development.