Mary Ann O'Brien (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House this afternoon and thank Senator Ó Murchú for his kind words. I entered this House having had the experience of setting up a charity and the parallel experience of having a business. As the business grew, I understood that corporate governance was very important and necessary, although I have put on the record that it was a very boring, part of running a business. I published this report and met with the Minister on a number of occasions in February 2013. We had a debate last May. I again acknowledge the meetings I had with the Minister and his excellent team headed by Úna Ní Dhubghaill and all the work they have done. We knew the regulator was on the way, unfortunately as it has turned out, too late.

When I was researching this report, I visited the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator, OSCR, as well the English regulator in London. Even though they have been in the media recently following our own scandals and have made statements about how awful it is for Ireland, Scotland and England had their own scandals even after the regulators were set up. OSCR is the one towards whom we need to look. Scotland has a very similar sized population although OSCR has 23,000 charities to look after and 23 employees. It can be done quite cost effectively.

The Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government launched his code of good practice in July 2012. That was definitely a case of putting the cart before the horse. Charities were asked to sign up to the code of practice about leading their organisations, exercising control, being transparent and accountable, working effectively and behaving with integrity.

We have 7,000 charities with 100,000 employees. Eighty charities have signed up to that code of practice with a further 80 pending signing. I look forward to the Minister's response. I hope he will expedite the establishment of the regulatory body. I refer to my report and I am convinced that the regulations need to be doubled in strength, a case of belt and braces. We do not want to have a system full of red tape but unfortunately the damage has been done by the awful practices in the CRC. I do not understand why Rehab is waiting for a board meeting before the chief executive officer can divulge her salary. For goodness sake, what is the great secret?

I was aided in doing my report by very able accountant colleagues who know all about this wonderful world of SORP, statement of recommended practice, and which must be implemented in Ireland. Every charity must take on this practice. It is a consistency in accounting treatment, policies and principles so that the accounts of all charities will be similar and international best practice is adhered to. To my knowledge, SORP stipulates that the information about the salaries of any worker in a charity paid more than €75,000 - from the CEO to the man with the bucket on the street - must be transparent. Increments of €10,000 over €75,000 must be recorded as public knowledge.

I hope the website will be simple and easy to navigate. I am 53 years old and I am not very familiar with social media websites. I want the website to be idiot-proof. I want to be able to find the charity I am looking for and be able to see immediately that, for example, 65% of its funding comes from Government and the remainder from fund-raising. I want to be able to see how much goes to administration and marketing and how many executives are earning more than €75,000. Such a system would enable the public to trust charities again because as a previous speaker said, 99.9% of charities are wonderful. We are all passionate about this sector which has 560,000 volunteers and has €6 billion to help the most vulnerable in our society. However, we have lost a lot of ground with a 40% drop in donations since the scandal began.

Money must be expended to fund education and training. In my report I talk grandly about corporate governance but I intend to attend a course in corporate governance. Anyone involved in a charity, big or small, needs to attend such a course. Officers of charities should be trained in corporate governance. I may sound like I am whining at the Minister but I am convinced of the need for a belt and braces approach. There cannot be enough transparency.

I attended a wonderful ITCR conference in the Aisling Hotel. It was planned to establish the regulator this August and perhaps the Minister will say it will be established earlier now. It will be a difficult task to establish a regulatory system and to have the boom-boom effect that I am asking for. More resources will be needed as quickly as possible. I suggest there should be training for board members and management teams. I suggest the regulator should host a micro-website with information on corporate governance and SORP.

I fund-raise actively with my husband and we have no shame. We look in America and anywhere there are people with money. However, following the scandals, there is huge resistance from the giant philanthropic funds or the large multinationals because they adhere to their corporate governance code and would be greatly concerned if they were to get any little wobble in that respect. We have had a national wobble here and we need to correct ourselves because the real money is with those and we would not have to go to members of the public who do not have the money to give at this time. The big boys, as part of their corporate responsibility, which is part of every business person's need, will ask about one's corporate social responsibility. If my little business was talking, as it were, to a multiple in England, that multiple will ask me about my corporate social responsibility and I would set out my corporate social responsibility tactics within the company and our plans for the year. All companies want to give but we need to know that those to whom we give are running their charities in a responsible and good way. I look forward to the Minister's reply.