Mary Moran (Labour) | Oireachtas source

It may seem like that, but it will not be.

I thank the Leader for arranging this important topical debate on the charities sector, and I would also like to thank the Minister, Deputy Shatter, for being here this afternoon. I would like to add my congratulations to Senator Quinn on his 21st anniversary in the Seanad. As he was delivering his speech, I thought about the wisdom that he has brought to this House. We have all benefitted from his many wise and wonderful comments, and his help to all of us who have recently joined the Seanad.

Revelations in the charity sector have hit the front pages of our local and national newspapers in the last few months. The explosion of the Central Remedial Clinic top-up payments and the remunerations scandal have been very damaging to the sector, along with the lack of transparency at Rehab. Just today we got another comment from the chief executive of Rehab, stating that the Department of Justice and Equality did not have a right to dictate how Rehab spent its lottery scheme funding received from the Government. Rehab has received over €32 in respect of the lotteries fund in the last seven years, yet it baffles me that it appears to feel no obligation to the State which allows these funds to be provided, and the people from whom the money was raised.

When people take money from their pockets and give to a charity, they rightly expect such money to be used on the people which the charity service supports, and not to be spent on advertising, annual reports or staff vehicles. People feel that they have been misled because they never thought their money would be used for anything other than helping people. Even those who did not donate to these charities feel apprehensive and hurt by the revelations in recent months. There is a definite wrong perception and misinterpretation as to what charitable organisation is about and we need to look at that. Our day-to-day interactions with charitable organisations typically involve the person who shakes the can in front of the local shop, or the group that heads off to Africa to help build schools or provide supplies. These are charities, but charities are also the groups that provide services to those with disabilities, services to the elderly and services to disadvantaged children. There are many of these charities here at home who provide a large portion of the services in the disability sector.

Since entering the Seanad over two years ago, I have called for clarity and transparency with service providers in our region, who are supplied with considerable public funds. I have made numerous verbal and written submissions to local providers, asking for financial accounts and statements, with queries on them. My requests have unfortunately often gone either unanswered or only partially answered. I have found the lack of transparency at a local level very surprising in the last two years, which unfortunately meant that when revelations broke about the CRC and Rehab, they caused me to be less surprised than others.

Irish people are known for their generosity and charity the world over. We provide support to the groups at home and abroad almost blindly, as we believe fervently in the charity that they provide.

I believe we are being reminded of times gone by. It is time to change the culture of those in charge and recognise the accountability towards the public. Charities, the HSE and service providers should have nothing to hide and should provide information, as stated today, on the valid and important questions we are asking here today and which the public has been asking since before Christmas. I call on all of those charities and service providers in receipt of public funding to provide their expenditure in an itemised fashion on a website as stated by Senator Mary Ann O'Brien.

I work and have been involved with many people in a charitable organisation who are now reaching the latter stages of their lives and who find it hard to find the website. It should, therefore, be user friendly. All of this money and every cent of public money should be accountable on the website. One should be able to log in and click on administration without getting headings such as "Miscellaneous" showing vast sums of money. Every cent should be accounted for. We are owed nothing less. Members must know where every cent of the funding goes.

Some within the Irish sector should take a page out of the Salvation Army's book. I read recently that its chief executive in the UK earns £10,500 sterling, with £10,258 sterling in benefits and still manages to run a top organisation, centred on charity and the people for whom it provides. We have to wonder if the sector has lost the run of itself at the upper level, because huge work is being done. Some 99.9% of the charities are doing excellent work. As a public representative and a private citizen I should not have to chase down facts and figures, and nor should anybody else, on the expenditure of public moneys as I have been doing for more than two years and still be left asking questions. I will continue to call for transparency at local and national level. I look forward to the appointment of the charities regulator before Easter.

I have worked with charitable organisations for many years as have many people here and I know first hand the impact the revelations of recent months have had on charitable giving and the damaging psychological effect it has on those involved in the sector. The grand troops in charities have been left to bear the brunt of the decisions of those in places of responsibility. I encourage people to continue to give to these charities. We have other well-funded organisations who work overtime to restore the faith of the people and provide the transparency we all deserve. The front-line people who are working in these charities, the nurses who are helping to provide for respite, those who cook dinner for disabled people in day services, give way above and beyond what their job entails and they are suffering as well.