Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

Since the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform pulled the plug on Benefacts, a name that will not be familiar to many of the public but that provided a valuable public service, I have been trying to figure out exactly what the Department has against open, transparent and comprehensive data. Benefacts was set up in 2014 at the request of the Department to provide transparency on the financial affairs of Ireland's mammoth €14 billion not-for-profit sector. For the first time, detailed audited financial and governance information on 34,000 non-profit organisations, which have 165,000 employees, was collected and collated in one place. Best of all, the website was open to the public and free to use.

An aspect of the work Benefacts did was to provide detailed information to the CSO that enabled it to fulfil important statistical reporting required under EU legislation. Ireland had availed of a derogation when it came to supplying detailed information about the not-for-profit sector to EUROSTAT until September 2017 when we ran out of road and the derogation ended. Benefacts was then able to step into the breach and spare the country's blushes by providing the CSO with quarterly reports at no charge with comprehensive data that was gleaned, amalgamated and digitised.

We all know there is a huge number of voluntary organisations, some of which provide health and social care services. Many of them receive substantial funding. For the first time Benefacts enabled the CSO to identify all 779 such entities and their various sources of funding. This allowed the CSO to capture all of the non-HSE income and expenditure for inclusion in the health accounts system. This ensured the Estimates on health expenditure in Ireland were comprehensive and accurate. In short, Benefacts allowed the people who used it to follow the money.

Now, without warning, the Department has pulled the plug and spent €250,000 shutting it down, having spent €6 million of public money establishing it. Its funding has been scrapped, the not-for-profit company has been wound up, its employees have been made redundant and the website is no longer available. This is despite a report commissioned by the Department from Indecon stating the benefits of Benefacts exceeded its costs. It also said that scrapping the service would reduce information needed for effective governance. Whose interests does this serve? We have a huge not-for-profit sector worth €14 billion. Does the Minister agree that it is a no-brainer to have detailed transparent financial information available? It is not too late to reinstate this. There are costs associated with duplicating the service and not providing EUROSTAT with the information it requires.

See this speech in context