Thomas Pringle (Donegal South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to tonight's debate. Everyone in the country watched last week with growing horror and anger at the performance at the Committee of Public Accounts of the CRC directors and the disgraceful actions they carried out in providing for the pension of their former CEO. In the drip feed of information about the cost of the pay off, many wondered why they had contributed their hard earned money to charities at all. The anger increased when people realised there is comprehensive charities legislation on the Statute Book which is not being implemented. The reason a charities regulator has not been established is the cost.

What has been the cost of the scandal played out in our committees over the last number of weeks? According to a recent survey 53% of charities have suffered a drop in fund-raising, 97% believe public trust has been lost and 54% believe that damage could be permanent, all because of the cost of establishing a regulator. The full implementation of the Charities Act might not have prevented the actions of the CRC board in treating the donations of their many families and supporters as a slush fund to be used for their own benefit. However, it would have placed them under the scrutiny of a regulator and could have been a deterrent to prevent them from acting in this way. They have done untold damage to the good work being done by all charities in Irish society and have made their work more difficult.

The actions of the board of the CRC will cost taxpayers much more because the State will have to pick up the slack caused by the drop off in donations. The failure to establish a regulator will probably end up costing more than it would have had it been up and running three years ago. This State abdicates so much of its responsibility to the charity sector and we should debate that in this House another day. Now we will end up carrying the cost of this inaction. The many families who feel obligated to fund-raise for the charities whose good work their children have benefited from feel very let down by the inaction of this State and the actions of the CRC.

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