Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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Question 201: To ask the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs the changes in relation to charity law both implemented and under consideration; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [32068/05]

Noel Ahern (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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As the Deputy will be aware, there is a clear commitment in An Agreed Programme for Government to regulation of the charities sector through the enactment of a comprehensive reform of charity law in order to ensure accountability and to protect against abuse of charitable status and fraud. The new legislation will introduce an integrated system of mandatory registration, proportionate regulation and supervision. The independent regulatory body, to be positioned as the centrepiece of the regulatory regime, will be charged with setting up and maintaining a register of charities.

The proposed content of the new legislation has been the subject of an inclusive public consultation process in 2004 on the core legislative proposals and, in 2005, on the specialist aspect of charitable trust law reform.

I have already publicly signalled spring 2006 as our target for publication of the Bill and my Department continues to give priority to the work of advancing this important legislation.

For the information of the Deputy, no changes to charities legislation have been implemented in recent times. It has been over 40 years since the main legislation, the Charities Act 1961, was passed. The main trust law, which is also largely applicable to charitable trusts, dates back to the 19th century, to the Trustee Act 1893.