The Third Sector or community and voluntary sector is different in every country. The following gives the experience in the Irish case as an example of the changes that occurred over the past thirty years or so. Although many scholars refer to the ‘community and voluntary sector’, there appeared to be a dichotomy between these two distinct groupings and even a ‘fracture’ between the two. Collins (2002, 96) noted that on one side of this fracture are the traditional voluntary organisations, with a strong rural base with a traditional Catholic social-policy ethos and originating mainly in the first half of the twentieth century. On the other side are the ‘community’ sector groups. These have a strongly urban or suburban base, have emerged over the past thirty years and were ‘inspired by European anti-poverty programmes and by radical social analysis’ (ibid, 97). Community development organisations, especially in urban areas, developed since the 1970s (Acheson, Harvey, Kearney and Williamson, 2004, 93-95), although Lee (2003, 50) has asserted that prior to 1987 and social partnership, community development was at best only ‘tolerated’.

Community development covers a wide range of issues and, citing the United Nations definition, was reviewed by Henderson and Thomas (1981):

‘…the term ‘community development’ has come into international usage to connote the process by which the efforts of the people themselves are united with those of governmental authorities to improve the economic, social and cultural conditions of communities, to integrate these communities into the life of the nation and to enable them to contribute fully to national progress…the complex of processes is thus made up of two essential elements, the participation of the people themselves in efforts to improve their level of living with as much reliance as possible on their own initiative, and the provision of technical and other services in ways which encourage initiative, self-help and mutual help and make them more effective. It is expressed in a variety of programmes designed to achieve a wide variety of specific improvements’.
(Henderson and Thomas, 1981, 7)

Collins (2002, 97) has asserted that the newer community sub-sector had demonstrated an ability to engage with highly disadvantaged groups and had as a result successfully ‘inserted itself into the State machinery’ especially in policies relating to ‘social inclusion, community development and participatory democracy’. One reason for the greater penetration of the community sub-sector related to a shift in the view of poverty at a policy level from being an ‘objective condition’ to a view of ‘exclusion’ and ‘marginalisation’. The community groups within this sub-group were at the fore in the analysis of countering disadvantage and creating the conditions for social integration (ibid, 94-95). The context for community development in the twenty-first century in Ireland was ‘generally supportive, but was nevertheless fraught with difficulty’. Community development had moved from the margins and has become a central player in anti-poverty and social-inclusion policy (Lee, 2003, 51) . As full partners in social partnership, expectations within the ‘target groups’ had been raised and these had to be met.

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