Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate the Leas-Cheann Comhairle on his election to the post. It is good to see him in the Chair this evening. I join my colleague Deputy Jim O’Callaghan in thanking the Social Democrats and the Green Party for tabling the motion. Everybody agrees with the sentiment of the motion and most people will be happy to support it. The motion has come before us because so many revelations have been made about charities, which people have found very disquieting. When people look at charities, they believe and trust that the organisations are doing good charitable work, and they are shocked and amazed when they hear some of the activities that have come to light in the media recently.

As has been said, there are approximately 12,500 charitable bodies in the country, and more than 8,000 have been registered to date. There may still be some charities out there that have yet to register, and the schools issue is being dealt with separately due to the large number of schools.

Regarding the Charities Act 2009, I welcome the fact that the Minister has recently signed a commencement order to give powers to the regulator to carry out investigations. It will come into being in the next two months. Although, presumably, the regulator will not be able to look retrospectively at past issues, at least from now on it will have this power. I wish the regulator, Mr. John Farrelly, every success in his job. It is a very demanding job. When the Charities Regulatory Authority was being established, people thought the position of charities regulator was relatively small and innocuous. However, people now fully understand that it is a billion-dollar industry. This is probably the amount taxpayers put directly into charities through the HSE and other organisations. I have not even mentioned the funding that goes on through the various housing associations. It is probably a $2 billion or $3 billion industry, when one considers the amount of private donations that go into these organisations. Mr. Farrelly has a big job. Some time ago, during the previous Oireachtas, when the lottery licence was being nationalised, we spoke of the need for a lottery regulator. It was suggested that the charities regulator and the lottery regulator might combine functions. I do not know if that is still planned.

The most important result of the motion is that everybody is supportive and wants to restore trust in the work carried out by the various charitable organisations. There is a need for some of this work to be carried out outside the State system. Some people believe everything should be done by the State and nothing by people outside it. I do not agree. Many founders of charities have a personal interest in a particular issue, come to the table because of a family tragedy and want to help other people work through the tragedies that happen in their lives. They have empathy that cannot be replaced. We do not want to prevent people from being in a position to help and do good work for other people. It is too simplistic to say the State should do all this work. If this were carried through to its logical conclusion, it would result in some of the housing agencies being wound up. Most of our largest hospitals are voluntary hospitals. The biggest hospitals in the city are voluntary hospitals funded through section 38 agreements. Are people saying we should not have St. James's Hospital or Our Lady's Children's Hospital in Crumlin - that they should be closed down or taken over and run by the HSE? It is too big a step. While some people may be ideologically wedded to this approach, I would not go down this route.

It is important that people know the reason charities have been given bad names. I hope the charities involved are a small minority. However, they have included some very big charities, such as Rehab, the Central Remedial Clinic, Console and St. John of God. These are national organisations that the public know and understand. People see the work of these charities, and are disappointed when they see things going wrong.

While we must support Mr. Farrelly in his role as regulator in carrying out investigation, I worry about the legal framework within which he will have to operate. I do not know how the Minister will resolve it. For example, off the top of my head, I can say that Console is being investigated by the charities regulator, the HSE, as principal funder, the Garda Síochána, the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement and the Revenue Commissioners. At least five State organisations are in there carrying out investigations.

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I do not think the appointment of a regulator will prevent or obviate the need for some of those organisations to continue to be involved. We will have to put in place a protocol whereby all these organisations are allowed share information among themselves. I would imagine that up to now if the Revenue uncovered something, it would be precluded by data protection legislation from passing that information onto the HSE. If the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement finds out something, it will not be able to tell the regulator. If the Garda finds out something, it might not be able to tell anyone until it goes to the Director of Public Prosecutions. We will have to work to ensure we do not have five or six organisations carrying out parallel investigations.

One of the reasons the public was so interested and surprised was that they thought that in some nice way these charities existed as a result of their voluntary fundraising. People are used to giving charitable donations to and fundraising for charities in Ireland. Most people are surprised that the majority of these are substantially funded directly by the taxpayer to carry out the work that needs to be carried out. Some of it can still be carried out in a voluntary capacity. We all know how generous we are as a nation. We donate in substantial amounts.

Another point I wish to highlight is that many local charities spring up overnight in response to a tragic situation, such as a house fire or parents or children are involved in a tragic accident and are no longer with us. Neighbours and communities come together. Sums of €50,000 or €100,000 may be raised and the efforts would be over in a month. We have to allow that to continue. Those efforts cannot be regulated out of existence.

I think everyone has noticed it but in recent times, I have been amazed at the springing up of charity shops in every town. I do not know what is going on behind some of those doors. In every town I go through, I see a charity shop. Some of them are well established shops but what percentage of the public's money that goes in the door goes to a good cause? I saw media reports on the issue today. In some of the small towns in Ireland, all we see are a few pubs, a bookie's office and the latest charity shop. Will that issue be examined and information compiled on what oversight is happening? People want to know what percentage of the money they give to a charity is spent on fundraising and what are the net proceeds that go to the good cause itself.

We all share in the ultimate objective of allowing the charities to continue to do their good work but the public need reassured that charities can be trusted and that nothing is going wrong. We can do that by having the regulator carry out his work. I wish the regulator every success in the important job he has to do.

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