Ms Helen Martin:

We share that concern. This is the difference between being reactive in our compliance work and being proactive in monitoring. To have proactive monitoring, there are several elements and we have geared ourselves up for it with the new IT systems, in order we can have a system to interrogate the information we get.

First, we need amendments to the Charities Act to enable us to introduce regulations on accounting and reporting. Once those are in place, there would be a proportionate requirement for certain standards of reporting and auditing for certain sized charities. There would be a somewhat different standard for the slightly smaller charities and then the really small ones that have an income of under €25,000-----