Ms Helen Martin:

It would. In that situation, we would notify the corporate enforcement authority of that. We mentioned earlier that we are in touch with many different regulators. We have memorandums of understanding, MOUs, and different things in place for that reason, but also because we are required under our Act to let other regulators and bodies, such as An Garda Síochána and Revenue, know where there are breaches of their legislation. From our perspective as the Charities Regulator, that is completely unfair. The chances are that the Corporate Enforcement Authority potentially will not follow up on what it might see in the great scope of what it does as not being a significant issue, whereas we view that as a significant issue. Albeit that the charity might be very small, it is important that charities manage their finances. They are entrusted with money by the public or State and they have to be able to manage it.

It seems unfair that a charity that is an association, for example, will be subject to sanctions by the Charities Regulator. The sanctions that we have available to us are not necessarily the same ones as there are under the Companies Act. If there is a framework to regulate charities, it should regulate all charities, regardless of their legal form. That is why this is essential.

Where that really bites is regarding the preparation of financial statements, the publication of them on the register and also the requirement to audit. If we were at the moment to introduce regulations around audit, for example, and when charities have to get their accounts audited, they would only apply to charities that were not companies. The charities that are companies would be able to avail of an exemption under the Companies Act, which would not be available to any of the other charities. That is an inherent unfairness in the framework as it is currently presented in the Charities Act 2009. It is why we tried to get it back in 2017 and why we have been talking about this for so long. It is having an impact on the level of transparency in the sector. We cannot introduce those rules around how a charity prepares its financial statements and also when they have to get those statements audited. Charities will be required to get those financial statements audited at a lower level than would be the case under the Companies Act. As the Deputy is probably aware, under the Companies Act, they can be making millions – Mr. Mulholland can correct me if I am wrong – before they have to get their accounts audited because they have an exemption under the companies legislation.

I just wanted to raise that point. It is very important, not just for the Charities Regulator, but to the sector. When we did our surveys back in 2020 with the public, which were published in 2021, one of the big things that came back, unsurprisingly, was what the public wanted to see and what it felt impacted its level and confidence in the sector was how transparent charities were around their finances and what they were doing with the money that they receive. It is crucial to that.