Marie Louise O'Donnell (Independent)

I draw the Seanad's attention to an article by Eilish O'Regan, the health correspondent of the Irish Independent, written on Tuesday, 6 March entitled "Probe into top-ups for €150,000 charity chiefs". I mention it because I call on the Leader to hold a debate on the charities sector, which gets €1.5 billion in State funding. There is an urgent need for the Government to outline plans to introduce a mandatory system of registration for charities operating in Ireland and to do so in the interests of financial transparency. I call for a debate on charities in order to maintain public confidence and to continue the outstanding valuable work that they do.