Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

What the regulator brought to the table last week was an explanation of how her office has been working for many years. The Chair also requested clarity on what is called the enforcement pyramid in terms of the staged level of engagement. An awful lot of energy is spent on education and persuasion and at the top of the pyramid we have the provision for removal from the register. What is missing are a couple of steps between the persuasive side, and the office of the Charities Regulator has become adept at that and there have been lots of public engagement sessions online, particularly during Covid. Lots of materials have been developed there to support charities, in recognition of the fact that they are run by voluntary boards and people using their spare time to run charities.

That approach will stay and grow, and it is the right approach in terms of initial engagement when concerns are first raised. It is a pyramid, thankfully, in that the number of occasions that warrant the need to go further up the scale gets smaller, but there was that gap. I heard a representative from the Charities Regulator say there were hundreds of occasions where they considered the ultimate sanction of removal from the register but decided not to because it was too much. What is being proposed in this Bill bridges that gap, and even then, that sanction will be imposed in collaboration with the charity. The proposal is for a temporary removal whereby the regulator will go through with the organisation in question what it needs to do in terms of financial and corporate governance to get itself back on the register. I thank the committee for the opportunity to flesh that out because there were concerns early on that the Charities Regulator would go to the top sanction straight away without any engagement, but I have been engaging with the office for the past couple of years and that is not how it works.

In terms of significant events, the three realms being considered in that regard are changing the main objects, property and income clauses, and winding-up clauses. When a charity is looking at changing those aspects of its constitution, it will be required to talk to the regulator and notify it in advance. These are very significant or serious changes to the constitution, not a little word here and there. I reiterate that because I know there were concerns that people would have to spend every meeting thinking about what significant events could be because, obviously, the word itself has a relatively subjective meaning. I repeat those three again: change in the main objects, property and income clauses, and winding-up clauses are the core issues upon which the regulator needs to be notified if a constitution of a charity is being changed.

Were there other issues the Vice Chair wanted me to comment on?