Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Social Democrats and the Green Party for tabling this motion, which we will be supporting. It is a very timely motion for obvious reasons. A number of amendments have been tabled to it but, as previous speakers said, I have some concerns about some of them but I am sure we can discuss them in further detail later.

As the Minister outlined in her contribution, the charity regulator is dealing with about 12,500 charities. It should be pointed out that a very small minority of charities are being investigated. I believe the Minister said the number was around 300 in respect of which complaints were submitted and less than half of that number are being investigated. It is important to point that out when we are dealing with the bigger charities such as Console, Rehab and the Central Remedial Clinic and because of their size, magnitude and popularity when something goes wrong or is found to be afoot, it casts a long shadow over all the sector. That is unfortunate because many charities do their business correctly, do everything above board and help people on a daily basis. The general public should not tar the whole sector with the one brush. It is unfortunate that some of the bigger charities have been found in recent times to be run less than properly.

Deputy Fleming made an interesting point in terms of the State bodies such as the Garda, the Revenue Commissioners and the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement that will be tasked with investigating charities when something does go wrong and how we can match up all those investigations to ensure that one arm of the State which may be carrying out an investigation talks to another arm of the Sate which may have information regarding a particular charity.

Regarding the Minister's final point, people who are interested in setting up charities and who have the right motives for doing so should not be discouraged from doing that as a result of these investigations. I was glad she said that those people should be valued and promoted. That is an important point.

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