The Irish Cancer Society has appealed to people to donate online or by text if bad weather keeps them indoors on Daffodil Day.
Irish Cancer Society chief executive Averil Power said the charity was concerned about a repeat of 2013 when the collection dipped by €500,000 to €2.7 million as people were urged to stay indoors due to severe snow, ice and rain.
The blow contributed to the charity slipping into the red that year as it recorded a loss of €1.2 million, following a surplus of €1.5 million in 2012.
“We would like to thank all the volunteers collecting today to help people affected by cancer in their communities,” said Ms Power.
“Only 2 per cent of our funding comes from the State. That means we need to raise €4 million today to meet increased demand for services such as our night nurses, volunteer drivers to bring patients to chemotherapy and lifesaving cancer research.
“We are worried the bad weather will affect our street sales, as happened in 2013. So we’re appealing to people who haven’t given yet to do so on www.cancer.ie or text DAFF to 50300 to donate €4.”
Daffodils will also be on sale in Boots stores nationwide for the next few days.
While there were some rain showers on Friday, Met Éireann said the weather forecast for the coming days was for mainly dry and settled conditions.
It will be generally dry and bright on Saturday with good spells of sunshine through the day and just a few showers across Ulster. It is to be a fairly cool day with highs of 7 to 9 degrees with light to moderate westerly breezes.
Sunday will be cool, dry and bright in most places, with frost, mist and fog clearing quickly during the morning. It will be cloudier in northern counties with showery outbreaks of rain at times.
There will be high temperatures of 8 to 10 degrees with moderate west to northwest breezes, fresher along the north coast.
The forecaster said there would be some frost in parts of Munster and south Leinster on Sunday night, with temperatures falling close to freezing, but cloudier skies further north should prevent significant frost. However, some patchy mist and fog may form.