Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

That echo is very disconcerting. I thank Ms Martin for her submission. Unfortunately, I was late as I had to be in the Dáil but I have read the report and I thank Ms Martin for taking the time to be here today.

Representatives of the charity sector appeared before this committee two weeks ago. I have a number of questions for her on issues that of concern to them that were raised at this committee. One concern is around the extension of significant additional powers, which is seen as a disproportionate or overly strong. It could be described as using a hammer to crack a nut. The legislation is seen as overpowering in that regard. The charities also felt that the appeals process is insufficient and that reputational damage could be caused to charities prior to any findings. As someone who works as a volunteer with a charity, I understand that the reputational damage that could be caused by something that may have happened but has not been proven is potentially fatal. That must be thought about carefully.

We also discussed the question of significant events and what exactly is meant by "significant event" in the context of members of the board of a charity. When one sits of the board of any organisation, one is always very conscious of the importance of doing one's best. Pretty much everyone who takes on such a role wants to do the best they possibly can but there is also a concern that because of issues that happened previously with various charities, people will be overly cautious in what they will report and what is meant by a "significant event". This could lead to a lot of additional work for the Charities Regulator and could overburden the charity sector, with people being overly cautious. The overall sense is that although a lot of the legislation is good, some tweaking is needed so that the members of boards are not going to spend all of their time worrying about what is a significant event and what they need to report.

The final issue relates to charities that are changing something in their constitution relating to their aims and objectives. Will Ms Martin clarify what that means, in real terms, for board members? What if something comes up that board members think is minor but the regulator does not? Clarification is needed. Everyone who sits on a board is concerned with the services that are provided by that board and with making sure that all work is being done to the best of the staff's ability. What board members do not want to do is to sit for hours on end worrying about what is significant, what needs to be reported, or whether they will get into trouble if they change something in a charity's constitution. We are asking people to volunteer, to come forward and sit on a board but if a charity is suspended or there is an investigation into it because of something that the board members did not think was significant, that causes reputational damage for the board members. How do we get people onto boards and involved in the community and voluntary sector if there is a fear in the back of their minds that they could get into serious trouble and suffer reputational damage, possibly for something they were not even involved in?