A woman has been elected national president of the St Vincent de Paul voluntary organisation for the first time in its 160-year history.
Mairead Bushnell will take on the leadership role in the community-based body, which has over 9,200 volunteers in 1,000 branches on the island of Ireland.
Ms Bushnell is a former Cork regional president of St Vincent de Paul and a past president of the Irish Countrywomen's Association (ICA) in Roscrea. She is originally from Co Wicklow and is a home economics teacher by profession.
She joined SVP in 1986 serving families and the elderly in one of Cork's most disadvantaged areas.
Ms Bushnell said today her aim as national president is "to focus on the reality that poverty has an ever-changing face - lack of money being just one aspect - and that SVP's unrelenting objective is to serve people in need in an appropriate and effective manner".
St Vincent de Paul depends entirely on public support to help provide poor families and elderly people with cash assistance, food, clothing, coal and help paying gas and electricity bills.
It spent over €41 million last year.