Seán Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)

It does not increase the cost to the Exchequer. What we are doing here is crazy. It would be far better to give the money the Minister of State is spending on setting up this regulatory authority to charities and let the Minister of State, the civil servants beside him and others in his Department deal with this issue.

I am a member of the Lions Club, which organises a Christmas collection for hampers. The response outside supermarkets is enormous when we ask people to put food into the basket. The reason for this is that people see that they are giving a tin of beans or peas which is going to some unfortunate family to make Christmas a little better. Ask them to give money and they will have doubts about it. Ask them to give money where charities are subject to this nonsense and they will become sceptical. I do not think this is good for the voluntary sector.

We are then told that charities must produce audited accounts and keep records. Maybe that is necessary to some extent but must the Lions Club of which I am a member keep accounts and have them audited? Will we be able to carry out our annual collection? All this seems to be going beyond what is really necessary.

What we should be doing in this country is reviewing all the quangos we have to see whether we can bring as much as possible back into the Civil Service, get real value for money and let people come in here and answer questions. I do not want to be writing to the chief executive of this new authority to find out about something when it is easier to table a parliamentary question, knowing that the Minister responsible is keeping an eye on what is happening. We are told in various sections about a chief executive and his or her powers, including his or her power to employ people, the transfer of people from other agencies and a superannuation scheme, all this nonsense.

I am sincere about this and am not making any political points because this is serious legislation. By all means, let us have a register and proper accounting, and see that people can be assured that when they give money, it will go towards the right purpose, but let us not fall back into setting up another authority every time there is a problem.

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