Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 14 September 2016

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality

Charity Appeals Tribunal: Chairperson Designate

9:00 am

Photo of Colm BrophyColm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I take Mr. O'Connor's point about the charity sector being in a good place right now. There are a lot of very brilliant charities operating in Ireland but I am not quite sure I would be as positive about it being in a good place as Mr. O'Connor. There are definite problems in the sector and the need for a regulator to be in place and to be given additional powers shows that is the case. There is, however, a flip side to all of that. I acknowledge the importance of transparency, openness and conducting business in public, but I worry about a charity getting caught up in a process between the regulator and an appeal which could do quite a lot of damage to it. In the world we live in, if one searches Google for the name of a charity and the first thing one sees is an appeal to the regulator, even if the charity wins, that could be damaging. What safeguards have been considered to try to minimise any potential reputational damage for charities which get caught up in this process?

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