Paddy Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I presume it is safe to say this Bill was quite a number of years in gestation. I hope that when it comes to fruition, it will do exactly what he said, namely bring much confidence to the charitable organisations and the sector. People kindly give to many charities. As he said, there are 11,500 charities. This is a large number in a small country and it means a huge number of people employed in the sector and a large number of CEOs and charitable boards. These organisations have not been well run in some cases, to say the least. These cases have been brought to the attention of the public, who have lost confidence in some charities. I hope this Bill will restore the confidence of the public, who in most cases fund the organisations. There is no doubt that the organisations do great work. This work could not be done by the public service. If the work had to be carried out by the public service, we would have a huge, bulging public sector in the State. I do not know if this would lead to the most efficient way of running many organisations. I hope that when this Bill passes through the Houses, it will result in more transparency in the running of the organisations and more accountability. There is a huge body of work for the regulator to do to ensure the functions of the 11,500 charitable organisations throughout the country are exercised properly, that the organisations are accountable to their board members and that the board members will ensure everything is above board.

Quite recently, we have seen many GoFundMe pages set up. They fund many charitable events and result in the carrying out of much charitable work. Are the setting up, running and administration of the funds collected covered by the Bill and will this area be regulated by the regulator? As we know, one bad apple can give a bad name to all the organisations. We have seen this happen. The GoFundMe pages are on the go more and more and are set up overnight to carry out the intended work, whether it is to bring home a person who has fallen ill or someone who has had a crash in a country far away from Ireland. They do unbelievable work, and great credit is due to those who do that sort of work and set up and administer the funds. However, is it covered by the Bill? Will the regulator have a say in how the funds are set up? Will it oversee how the funds are disbursed at the finish? Will a board be put in place to administer the GoFundMe pages? This is an area that should be examined. If it is not covered in the Bill, it should be.

I wish the Minister of State well with this. There are some unbelievable charitable organisations and they do unbelievable work, but I hope this legislation will result in more transparency and accountability right across the board and give more confidence to the people working in the organisations such that they will know that there is appropriate accountability. When people who contribute to charity find out there is more accountability and that the Charities Regulator has certain powers, they will have the confidence to continue to support the charities and the confidence in their staff that those staff deserve.