John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)

It is recognised that the establishment and maintenance of the register will give rise to costs. The purpose of this amendment is to allow greater flexibility in the future in terms of maintaining the register of charities. Specifically, the amendment seeks to give the authority options, once directed by the Minister, to so use material from other relevant electronic databases, including any that have been or are being supported, in whole or in part, by public funds, in maintaining the register.

By way of background, over the past two years my Department, with the EU and other philanthropic sources, has provided funding towards a feasibility study to establish whether it might be possible to set up a GuideStar Ireland. For those who may be unfamiliar with the concept, GuideStar is founded upon the provision of an extensive, free, searchable web-based database of all non-profit organisations in a country. It is constituted as a non-profit entity in all the countries where it has been established or is in development, including the USA, the UK, Canada, Israel and Germany. In the countries where it is established, GuideStars are regarded as an authoritative source of information about the entire non-profit sector, which would include the charities sector.

This amendment seeks to ensure there would be no impediment preventing the authority, under the direction of the Minister, from engaging with external data providers, such as a future GuideStar Ireland, in relation to the provision of material to assist in maintaining the register of charities. While there is no certainty that a GuideStar Ireland or similar project will proceed or, indeed, that there would be any public funding available for such a venture, it would be remiss for the legislation not to provide for the possibility of such an arrangement, particularly were it to be the case that public funds had been expended on the potential source of such data.

The legal advice to me is that the most direct way to ensure this is to include a provision for an appropriate direction from the Minister to the authority. I stress that such a direction would apply only in relation to the maintenance of the register of charities. This amendment will help to ensure efficiency, value for money and better joined-up government in the future.