John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)

I gave the amendment much consideration because a number of people raised the issue. The potential impact of the legislation on collections in aid of local or international tragedies has already been discussed on Committee Stage. The Bill does not change the current situation on spontaneous collections. What has applied up to now in regard to such collections will continue to apply. As it stands, spontaneous collections made within a workplace, an office or private club do not require a collection permit. However, I suggest that public cash collections have the potential to give unscrupulous people licence to defraud the public. People are entitled to know that their generous contribution to a spontaneous collection is properly accounted for, as is the case with a normal public collection that has a permit. The key point is that after the enactment, when whatever is collected has been handed over to a charity, the public will be in a much better position than it is currently to verify that the contribution goes towards the charitable purpose intended.

If accepted, the amendment would give rise to important questions such as how such a collection could be monitored and by whom and the very fact that a collection would be exempt and could be outside the remit of the Garda. If a collection is not monitored, how can we be sure it does not generate more than €50,000 or know how much is raised? In summary, the proposed amendment would overly complicate matters and as the Bill does not affect the current position in regard to such conditions, I do not propose to accept it.

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