Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, to the House. I know she is particularly conscious of the value to society of the charities and non-governmental organisation sectors. I commend my colleagues, Senators Whelan and Higgins, on whose initiative we have put forward this motion. I also welcome the stakeholders in the Visitors Gallery, Mr. Hans Zomer of Dóchas, the former Senator, Ms Kathleen O’Meara of the Irish Cancer Society, Ms Patricia Quinn of the Irish Nonprofits Knowledge Exchange and others.

We bring forward this motion in the spirit of wishing to be constructive and I am delighted it has cross-party support. All Members are agreed on the merits of the full commencement of the Charities Act 2009 and we are all grateful to the Minister of State for setting out the Government’s commitment to its full commencement. As she made clear, as has the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Shatter, it is for budgetary rather than policy reasons that the full implementation of the Act has been deferred. They referred to the cost of the establishment of the new statutory authority envisaged which none of us can pretend is not a significant factor. We know the Government is committed to reducing numbers in the public sector and there is an embargo on recruitment. However, it would seem, as Senator Whelan has said, that it might be more cost-effective to introduce some form of statutory authority in this area through the transfer of existing public servants rather than recruiting new public service members. We believe it would save money in the long term and enhance the immense good work that charities do, as well as the public trust and confidence in them.

We know if the Act were fully commenced it would provide for the establishment of a charities regulatory authority, mandatory registration of charities and require them to make information on their finances available to the new authority and, therefore, to the public. It would allow for greater transparency and accountability in charities. The current position is that we have large numbers of charities of which approximately 8,000 are registered with Revenue and the Companies Registration Office as companies limited by guarantee.

This may only be a small portion of the not-for-profit sector. Trinity College’s Centre for Nonprofit Management has estimated there are approximately 24,000 non-profit organisations if one includes schools, trade unions, local Tidy Towns committees and so forth. Many of these smaller organisations will not be incorporated or have any corporate status. This is unsatisfactory, as is the fact that charities can be set up in several ways. The only effective State regulation is through Revenue when these organisations apply for charitable status, the CHY reference number. However, this means there is no ongoing monitoring that would be necessary to ensure greater transparency in the financial management of charities.

As other Members have said, I do not mean in any way to impugn the good work charities do. We must acknowledge, however, this sector employs large numbers of people and in which large amounts of money are involved. The Irish Nonprofits Knowledge Exchange found recently that non-profit organisations receive between €5.7 billion and €6 billion annually and may employ more than 100,000 people. I am grateful to Ms Patricia Quinn of the Irish Nonprofits Knowledge Exchange for pointing out the cost to the charities sector, and therefore society, of the lack of a uniform regulatory system, compliance with company requirements and so on.

As the Minister of State stated, it is not that charities are non-regulated as they are subject to regulation under the Companies Acts but they are regulated inappropriately and not sufficiently nor effectively. This is the point of this motion and we look forward to working with the Minister in future.