Mary Ann O'Brien (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House and congratulate him on all his work on philanthropy. One of my main passions since I became a Senator has been interacting with the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Alan Shatter, on the need for a charities regulator.

I wish to speak about this issue. There have been two main constants, namely, the public and the charity sector itself. Everybody knows donations to charity are falling on a yearly basis, primarily due to the public having less disposable income to donate to worthy causes. Never before has it been so important that we put in place a framework of regulation covering transparency and checks and balances. To return to a point made by Senator Mac Conghail, we do not have a list, and I would love to see a website where anyone can see a beautiful list of charities, what they do and where their giving is. The main word is "transparency".

Like Senator Mac Conghail I am fund-raising all the time, in my case for the Jack & Jill Foundation. I am glad to say we are doing well but what we find with regard to corporations, particularly foreign direct investment companies, is that my gosh golly one must have one's house in order before one goes near them because they want to audit one and need to know one is squeaky clean. We have no regulatory framework. The Minister, Deputy Shatter, is superb but he cannot get the regulator up and running fast enough. We might have put the cart before the horse because we need this for the initiative of the Minister, Deputy Hogan, to go forward in a powerful way. I hope he agrees with me. The two Departments need to work hand-in-hand. I know they are working hard on it.

Last year, the media, God bless their hearts, damaged the sector by the way it was portrayed. We had "Prime Time", The Sunday Timesand the Evening Heralddiscussing the secrecy of salaries. Even last week I read in the Irish Examinerthat donations from the public to a large Irish charity decreased from €8.1 million to €2.8 million in 2012, and there was a 45% drop in donations in 2011. The good news is the charity in question received a 4% uplift in the Government's donation which was €50 million. What upset me is the charity spent €1.4 million on fund-raising in 2012 as opposed to €1.3 million in 2011, which is a 13% increase. Explaining the massive drop in donations, the directors of the charity stated no major appeals for funds were made in 2012 but it spent €1.4 million on fund-raising. This particular charity has €31 million in the bank on deposit. When people read such things in the newspapers they wonder why they should give to such a charity. As I stated to the Minister, Deputy Shatter, no charity should keep more than two years of what it needs on deposit in a bank account. Many big charities in the country have in excess of €300 million or €400 million. This is hard for those of us with a smaller social entrepreneur charity organisations but it should not be allowed.

I have moved away slightly from the actual subject but I am making this point because we need regulations and transparency so the public can be confident and feel their money is going to the right place and is being looked after correctly in a very transparent and responsible way and they know they are getting value for money.