Eamonn Coghlan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State is welcome to the House. In my sport, they would say she is taking up the baton for the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Shatter. I commend Senator Mary Ann O’Brien on this motion, as it is most important to keep pressure on the Government to fully implement the Charities Act 2009.

I have spent 30 years working with the Children’s Medical and Research Foundation in Our Lady's Children's Hospital, Crumlin, first as a volunteer when I lived in the United States and then, on my return to Ireland in 1990, as a marketing and communications executive. In the latter decade of my professional working life there, I was director of fundraising and development. Many people used to think I just lent my pretty face - or celebrity status, if one wishes to call it that - towards raising funds for Crumlin. I was in fact there in a professional capacity, working on the front line with many thousands of volunteers.