Dr. Oonagh Breen:

The committee should note section 7 of the Charities Act, because the effect of section 7 is to decouple Revenue and the Charities Regulatory Authority. This means the Charities Regulatory Authority can decide that an organisation can register as a charity and have charitable status, but Revenue can then make its own separate decision as to whether to give charitable tax exemption status to that organisation. That can be either good or bad, because it means the two bodies must talk to each other to ensure some sort of understanding. However, in terms of human rights, it means this section can no longer be a hold on ensuring human rights and their advancement in the Charities Act. Revenue can continue to do as it has always done and decide it is not going to deal with human rights organisations under charitable tax exemption status and say that the only way it will give that exemption is if the organisation comes under the very small category of human rights organisations under section 209 of the Taxes Consolidation Act, which have consultative status with the UN or the Council of Europe and are promoting internationally recognised rights as opposed to domestic rights. Special status can be obtained under that heading. However, there is nothing to stop a provision being included in the Charities Act and then letting Revenue go its own way in terms of tax recognition and then dealing with that problem at source.