Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State has answered most of the questions I had. I express my condolences on the passing of his mum. I welcome the Bill. What we are trying to achieve in it in respect of transparency and effectiveness is very welcome. We need to ensure there are no unintended consequences. The more ambiguity we can remove from the Bill, the better.

My main query and my main reason for being here today relates to the thresholds. I was very concerned about the €10,000 threshold. I really welcome the fact that the Minister of State has moved that to €25,000. I still think there is a very big gap between the €25,000 and the €250,000 in the context of inflation and the activities of charities now and so on. That needs to be taken into consideration. This is head 14. I am finding in Mayo that so many volunteers are moving away from organisations. We really need to achieve protection for the volunteers, accountability and transparency here but in a way that we make this as unbureaucratic as we possibly can. Even very long-standing events in Mayo are cancelled this year, not because of Covid but because of the fact that the organisations involved cannot get enough volunteers to run the events. The impact of that in rural Ireland - and, I am sure, in urban Ireland as well - is quite severe. There is also the fact that so many of the things that should be done directly by the State and under the likes of the section 39 groups and others are done by registered charities carrying out that essential work. That not being carried out will have a really detrimental impact. If the Minister of State could look at the threshold, that would be really good. He says the Charity Appeals Tribunal will be used more. Maybe he could speak to what it will be used more for in respect of protecting people. We need to provide applicants and charities with greater independent legal recourse as well. Maybe the Minister of State could speak to that. I welcome his responses and his willingness to get this as right as possible and to work with everybody across the board in order that we have legislation that serves the communities in which these charities operate and those who contribute.

I echo the point my colleague, Deputy Paul Donnelly, made about avoiding the fact that there are questions raised when they do not need to be raised and the reputational damage that that may do to charities in respect of fund-raising and their good standing in communities.