So, how many people in Ireland volunteer?

This is based on the November 2022 Irish Charities Engagement Monitor, which asked the following question of 1,000 people aged 15 or over: “Have you given time as a volunteer in the last 12 months? This could be any time you have offered any organisation or individual, not just a charity, that was unpaid.” 

At Volunteer Ireland, we think that this question asked in the ICEM is the best one to use, because it covers both volunteering through an organisation (what we call “formal volunteering”) and volunteering not through an organisation (what we call “informal volunteering”). It also provides a clear explanation in the question of what is meant by volunteering, and a clear timeframe of a full year.  

Other statistics about volunteering in Ireland 

There are lots of different statistics out there about how many people volunteer in Ireland. They vary based on how the question was asked. Below is an overview of some of these, and the limits of each one.  

According to the 2022 census, 711,379 people, or 13.82% of the 2022 population in Ireland, volunteer. This is based on the question: “Do you regularly engage in helping or voluntary work in any of the following activities without pay?” The problem with this question is the word “regularly”: The word is open to interpretation (one person might consider weekly regular, another might consider monthly regular); and it doesn’t capture people who volunteered irregularly – which more and more people are doing. So, we think that it significantly underestimates how many people in Ireland volunteer. Despite the limits of the 2022 census data on volunteering, it’s worth noting that the census data does allow us to look at very detailed demographic breakdown of volunteering, which is very useful.  

You could also look at the 2024 World Giving Index, which tells us that 29% of the population in Ireland aged 15 or older volunteered in 2023. This is based on the Gallup world poll, which asked the question: “Have you volunteered your time to an organization?” Again, this isn’t perfect because it doesn’t include volunteering that happens outside an organisation, like helping your neighbour. And it doesn’t provide a clear timeframe, so people who volunteered a long time ago, might have answered yes.  

According to the Charities Regulator, 21% of the adult population volunteered with a charity in 2022. That’s This is from their research on “Irish attitudes towards the charity sector” published in May 2023, delivered on their behalf by Amárach. The question asked was: “Have you made a donation of money, your time or goods directly to a charity at any time in the last 12 months?” and one of the options was “Yes, my time (i.e., volunteered).”  

According to a separate report from the Charities Regulator called “Report on the Social and Economic Impact of Registered Charities in Ireland,” also delivered by Amárach and published in 2023, 18% of adults (about 647,800 people) answered yes to the following question in 2022: “I am a volunteer for one or more charities.” 

The limit with both these figures from the Charities Regulator, is that they ask about volunteering only within charities, and a lot of volunteering happens within organisations that are not charities or outside an organisation altogether.  

So in conclusion, the latest figure that Volunteer Ireland, as the national volunteer development organisation, thinks best represents the number of volunteers in Ireland comes from the Irish Charities Engagement Monitor. It tells us that 1,116,950, or about 27% of people over the age of 15, volunteered in Ireland in 2022. That said, all the figures mentioned above give us useful insights and demonstrate that volunteering plays a hugely significant part in Irish life.  

Have you come across any other national volunteering statistics for Ireland? If so, let us know – we’d love to hear about it!