Joe Carey (Clare, Fine Gael)
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Question 77: To ask the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs the projected time envisaged for the establishment of the Register of Charities; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16675/09]

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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The Charities Act 2007 was signed into law on 28 February 2009. The Act may be commenced in whole or in part by way of Ministerial Order.

The Act, when commenced, will introduce a modern regulatory framework for charities in Ireland for the first time. The Act provides, inter alia, for the establishment of a new Charities Regulatory Authority, which will be responsible for establishing and maintaining a Register of Charities. Any organisation that wishes to operate as a charity within this jurisdiction will have to be on the Register. Only organisations that have been established exclusively for charitable purposes, and which have a public benefit, will be permitted entry onto the Register.

The Act further provides that any organisation that holds charitable tax exemptions from the Revenue Commissioners on the day the Register of Charities is introduced will be automatically deemed to be entered onto the Register, and thus such organisations will not have to apply to the new Authority for registration. My officials are in discussions with their counterparts in the Revenue Commissioners in relation to the information held by Revenue on organisations that are eligible for charitable tax exemptions, as well as the appropriate arrangements for the transfer of this information to my Department in anticipation of the introduction of the Register of Charities in due course.

As there are over 7,000 such organisations, the Deputy will appreciate that there is a considerable body of work to be done in this regard alone. It must also be recognised that this is only one element of the wider programme of work to be undertaken by my Department to ensure that the essential elements are in place to enable the introduction of the statutory regulatory framework provided for in the Act. In other countries, it has taken a number of years after enactment of the legislation for the new regulatory system for charities to be formally introduced and this is likely to be the case in Ireland also.