John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)

Throughout the development of this Bill through the Houses of the Oireachtas, we have been consciously looking at ways to ensure that the administrative burden imposed by legislation does not prove unmanageable, particularly for smaller charities. It is recognised that upon application for registration, a comprehensive list of documentation must be filed by charities. The amendment I introduced in the Dáil to deem existing charities as automatically registered goes a long way towards alleviating the registration burden for existing charities. However, while I consider that larger charities in particular should provide the range of information listed, I recognise that smaller charities or particular categories of charities might have difficulties in fulfilling this requirement. With this in mind, I commend amendment No. 24 to the House and the related necessary technical amendment No. 25 under which the authority, with the consent of the Minister, can reduce the number of documents that particular charities are required to file. This amendment will be welcomed by such charities and I commend it to the House.