Terence Flanagan (Dublin North East, Fine Gael)

First, I wish to congratulate the Minister of State, Deputy Pat Carey, on his new role. I wish him well for the future. I congratulate him on the publication of the Bill.

It is estimated that there are more than 19,000 community and voluntary organisations working for charitable purposes in Ireland and that the sector contributes more than €2.5 billion to the economy each year. The sector employs more than 63,000 full-time and part-time staff and is very important for the economy. It is imperative that this industry is appropriately regulated, as charities themselves would be the first to admit.

While I welcome the Bill's publication, it is necessary for the Government to support charities as promised in Towards 2016 by providing additional resources to assist the sector in meeting its obligations in a new regulatory environment. The Bill will help to reform the law relating to charities in order to ensure accountability and to protect against abuse of charitable status and fraud. We are all aware of many charities that are household names. However, there are many other charities which I am not sure are even legal. Adopting the Bill will enhance public trust and confidence in charities and increase transparency in the sector. This Bill, along with the Charities Acts 1961 and 1973 and the Street and House to House Collections Act 1962, will provide a strong regulatory framework for charities. The Bill will also streamline the many authorities that regulate a charity's work and will clarify the duties attaching to directors and trustees.

Key aspects of the Bill that I welcome include: a definition for the first time of "charitable purpose"; the establishment of a charity appeals tribunal; a new regulatory authority to secure compliance by charities with their legal obligations and also to encourage better administration of charities; a register of charities in which all charities operating in the State must register; and that annual reports will need to be supplied by the charities to the new authority.

The Bill, when enacted, should ensure that charities remain entitled to engage in all types of campaigning and advocacy work related to furthering their legitimate charity purposes and that working to promote human rights and social justice are specifically named as charitable purposes. I welcome that the charities regulatory authority will have the power to institute investigations, to call for documents and search records of all charities, to enter premises on foot of a search warrant and to impose sanctions on Irish charities and foreign-based charities with administration bases in Ireland. I also welcome the significant penalties for offences.

At present, we have no central register of public charities and a key function of the regulatory authority will be the establishment and maintenance of a register of charitable organisations. The public will have access to this and will be able to check the facts and figures of any charity about which they may be unsure. It should ensure that we can eliminate all the bogus charities. The authority will also have the power to remove from the register a body that has infringed the law. It will be an offence for a body not to register, to claim it is a charity or to operate or raise funds. No doubt the key purpose of the register is to promote transparency and the register will enable the public to confirm the bona fides of charities, thereby limiting the scope for fraud. The Bill also provides that all charitable organisations will be required to make annual reports, which will be accessible to the public apart from those in respect of private trusts that are not funded by donations from the public, which is fair enough.

Some of my concerns would include the funding for community and voluntary organisations. We need a new framework for the statutory funding of voluntary organisations, which should provide multi-annual funding for the direct and indirect or hidden costs of running such organisations. The funding should also be index-linked. We also need to improve the tax incentives for donations to charities and voluntary organisations so that all donations are tax effective as opposed to the current system whereby only donations greater than €250 per year can be made in a tax-efficient manner. Hopefully, the Minister of State will re-examine this issue.

He also needs to put in place an infrastructure of support for the voluntary sector in Ireland similar to that provided by IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland to the business community. This new support organisation should target the needs of voluntary organisations and provide training, advice and supports in the area of board management, governance, leadership, general management and financial management.

I thank all those volunteers who give of their time freely and they should be commended on all the great work they do. I was delighted to be involved in the Special Olympics. It was one of the best things I did in my life. One gets more back from giving than anything else. We should all support and enable voluntary activity in Ireland to be conducted in a purposeful and strategic manner. This will be achieved when community and voluntary organisations are funded appropriately, regulated sensitively and supported comprehensively. I support this legislation and I ask the Minister of State to take note of my concerns.

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