Ms Madeleine Delaney:

On that point, that is not something Mr. Doherty raised with the Charities Regulator. I believe he was asked about it with the inspectors but at no point did he come with that. It is not something that I was looking at. Again, one would have look behind that from the Charities Regulator perspective because the charity trustees are the ones under the Act who are charged with the responsibility for everything. We typically try to engage with them. We sometimes do it via the CEO but we want to make sure the trustees are engaged with us because sometimes it is by our engagement with them that trustees realise everything is not as it should be.

Regarding Deputy Farrelly's question, we look at risk and resolution. A big factor here is that there was a significant funder who had already come on board to provide supports and advance money so that the services could be delivered. There were trustees who were continuing but with a commitment for new trustees to come on board. I do not think we should overlook the fact that we now have a board of trustees and a chair, some of whom will be before the committee this afternoon, who have volunteered to come forward to try to save this organisation and get it back on track. That is very significant because they have, I presume, done some due diligence and feel they can have an effect and get it back on track. We would have perhaps struggled, if we had gone into court, to find trustees to take on that. We are looking for the resolution. We do not put the charity itself first. Ultimately, we want charity trustees to succeed but if they cannot we are very much concerned with the services, the beneficiaries and the assets, and that is where our focus is. There was no immediate danger to these and intervention was taking place. That is why we did not apply at that time and we have not applied now. However, like Mr. O'Leary, we have it under review and we need to see what the future of this organisation is like. What happened here is what happens with charities. They drift from their core purpose. This is an organisation that was providing emergency supports to a very vulnerable cohort of people and it was an exemplar at that. Then, through dire need, it drifted and moved into the housing first area, which was a completely new area. People may not have stopped, taken stock and questioned if the organisation had the capacity, the structure and the wherewithal to deliver on this - even taking the funding out of it - and so it ran into difficulty over those two years and mistakes were certainly made. The question is can it get back to delivering on its core purpose. That is what it is trying to do. It has trustees there who have signed up to do it. There is a range of expertise. They have shown they are putting things in place but it will only be when we see those in operation. Everybody will be watching very closely to see whether they have an effect and if it will be sustainable into the future. If not, we will take steps between us to make sure the services and the assets are secured.