Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute on this subject and I thank the Social Democrats for raising it. While I support the good work of volunteers on the ground, the Dáil cannot reassure people that the charity sector is regulated. It is an impossibility.

The Charities Act 2009 was introduced following the Law Reform Commission, LRC, identifying a gap in charities' regulation. Legislation was drafted in 2006 but it took until 2009 to get it passed. There was clearly no intention of implementing the Act, given the announcement by the then Minister for Justice and Equality, Alan Shatter, in 2011 that its full implementation had to be put on hold because of the costs associated with setting up the regulator. Thanks to a number of perceptive questions put by Deputy Mattie McGrath in March 2012, the same Minister told us that, because of the troika, the Government was committed to reducing, not increasing, public service numbers. In answering another question, he specifically stated that the "new regulatory body for charities, presented a challenge, particularly given the moratorium on public service recruitment." There was no intention of regulating the charity industry.

Fast forward to tonight and the Tánaiste complimenting herself on the steps she has taken. In May 2015, four directors of the Saoirse Foundation left its board because the charity regulator had no power. Last year and this have seen scandal after scandal, culminating in the latest involving Console, but also involving Rehab, the Central Remedial Clinic, St. John of God, Irish Society for Autism, the Saoirse Foundation and Carline.

I am not an expert on another matter, but Revenue and two Deputies - I congratulate the Sinn Féin Deputy - have highlighted the implications of special purpose vehicles, SPVs. A senior State tax official has raised serious concerns about the corporate law firm Matheson's use of registered charities to facilitate tax avoidance and so on, yet the Tánaiste on behalf of the Government glibly told us that she had introduced measures.

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