Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire go dtí an Teach. In recent weeks and months, the charities sector has been in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. The tradition of charitable giving in this country goes back generations. We are a nation of givers, going back to the people who went out as missionaries all over the world. Our achievements in international peacekeeping are one aspect of this, as well as what we have done to support people far less well-off than ourselves. We did so at a time when this country and its people did not have many resources. In short, the principle of giving is an innate element of the Irish psyche.

There was also an innate sense of trust among Irish people when it came to their giving to charitable causes. Unfortunately, a small but significant element within the charities sector has breached not just the legal trust, but also the moral trust of the public. People have no issue whatsoever with a fair day's wage for a fair day's work. Nobody has a difficulty with persons in senior positions receiving appropriate remuneration. The key word here, however, is "appropriate". What we have discovered through revelations in recent weeks - indeed, recent years - is that significant salaries are being paid in the sector, in some cases well in excess of what even the Taoiseach or the Minister responsible for legislating for the sector receives. There is something fundamentally wrong in that scenario.

When a private, wealth-generating company is paying a chief executive officer a significant salary because that person is leading the generation of wealth, that is reasonable. It certainly is not reasonable, however, for an organisation that generates its resources from taxpayers in the first instance to pay those types of salaries. "Section 38" and "section 39" have become buzzwords of late, but there was very little public awareness of what was happening in these organisations prior to the recent revelations. To have chief executive officers of charities receiving remuneration far above and beyond what is reasonable and appropriate is not acceptable. The corporate governance of charities has been an issue for a long time. In 2009, when the then Government made an effort to deal with these issues, the Fine Gael Party in opposition supported that initiative because it was the right thing to do. My party has sought to ensure that the pathway the Minister is charting is the correct one and that time would be taken to ensure it is so.

That pathway having been decided, it was wholly appropriate for the Minister, in the midst of the emerging controversies, to make an announcement in January of his intention to proceed in setting up a charities regulatory authority. The establishment of that body certainly will help to bring clarity to the situation. There remains a requirement, however, in the coming years, to examine forensically the management of charities in this country, from the smallest organisations to the major players.

There were thousands of registered charities in this country, some with obscure titles. I believe A Pint a Month is the name of one charity. I wonder what it does. Perhaps it does some very good work, but I do not know.

We must have a discussion about and a forensic analysis of charities. There are charities doing the same work as other charities, so there is duplication. That must be examined. If there is a national charity doing very good work, do we need a plethora of localised charities doing the same work and effectively duplicating resources? Certainly, the accountancy element of charities requires forensic examination. Charities are set up as means for companies to be efficient with their taxation payments. Many companies make very generous donations to charity. These are totally legitimate, appropriate, above board and very welcome. They give enormous support to charities. However, others make donations to charities which could be described, in the most charitable language, as somewhat obscure. One would question if that is appropriate, if technically legal.

The behaviour of accountancy firms must be part of the overall conversation we have about charities. I do not believe there should be a differentiation between somebody paying their taxes and somebody putting a euro in a bucket. The money should have the same element of transparency. The ordinary individual's concept of charities is very simple. They want transparency and to ensure that the vast majority of what they contribute is going to the cause to which they have chosen to contribute. At present, as a society we cannot give an undertaking that this is happening. It is happening in many charities, but it is not happening in many charities as well.

It is appropriate and proper that scrutiny has focused on charities. As I said earlier, the contribution of individual citizens to charities should have the same transparency as the payment of taxes. I will be interested in the Minister's response to this debate. Significant progress has been made already, but I consider the progress made to date to be only a starting point. To restore the ultimate and absolute confidence of the Irish people in charities will require a job of work. That job has started and will continue for the lifetime of this Government. I sincerely hope it will continue under the next Government, because it will take a significant period of time to achieve the absolute confidence we need.