From top; Soc Dem leaders, from left: Stephen Donnelly, Catherine Murphy and Roisin Shorthall launching the party’s charity regulation motion yesterday; Anne Marie McNally

it’s time we asked ourselves if vital services should be provided by the State rather than outsourced to charities.

Anne Marie McNally writes:

Last night in the Dáil the Social Democrats tabled a Private Members Motion calling for more robust scrutiny and regulation of the charity sector.

The motion comes on the back of the recent Console revelations which, despite the experience of Irish people regarding a charity ector scandal, still managed to shock us!

But it shouldn’t have shocked us given that we never put in place the framework to ensure there would be no repeat following the previous scandal or the ones before that.

Remember the Rehab scandal? Recall the Central Remedial Clinic scandal?

Yep, they continue to happen and we continue to be outraged for the requisite time then the headlines forget and we all go back to our daily lives.

But how many of us cancel the Direct Debits to various charities as we do? The many great people working and volunteering in the sector suffer and most importantly, the service users suffer.

In the wake of the Rehab scandal, charitable donations to Rehab fell by two million euro. Console has been all but wound up.

Given the negative impact on charitable donations caused by these recurring scandals it is incumbent on us to ensure we, in so far as is possible, rogue-proof the charitable sector so that public faith is restored and maintained.

In 2009 the Charities Act came into law. This act provided for the establishment of the Charities Regulation Authority and within that, the Charities Regulator. Part 4 of the Act provided the Regulator with investigative powers.

All sounds good right?

Well the problem arises when you think back to the 2009 Act and realise that actually the Regulator was appointed until 2013, four years after the Act was passed into law.

Even more astonishingly Part 4 of the Act, conferring investigative powers on the Regulator, was only commenced by the Minister just last week and will come into effect in September. Hardly a model of good governance and regulation in the sector now is it?

There are over 20,000 registered charities and you’d be surprised at some of the organisations that can classify as charities.

Schools and sports clubs, community organisations and myriad other endeavours will often be classified as charities. I previously worked in an organisation that had charitable status.

The organisation I worked within was funded almost entirely by public funds. There were reporting requirements to each funder and there was the necessity for annual audit. Yet within that setting, just as I joined, there was an instance of misappropriation of funds.

The funders moved in, the auditors scratched their heads and everyone was shocked. There was a criminal investigation that has yet to be completed seven years later.

Anecdotally I hear these types of stories regularly. The reaction that I witnessed from the funders and the authorities did not give me confidence of the infallibility of the sector to rogue operators.

And there will always be rogue operators no matter what protocols you out in place but the trick is to have an appropriate framework so as to ensure only the really determined will try to flout the rules and when they do the system is designed to both catch and hold accountable the culprit – in a timely and appropriate fashion.

Separately it’s time for us to start asking ourselves if some of these vital services should be provided by the State rather than outsourced to voluntary and charitable endeavour.

When concerns began to be raised about Paul Kelly in Console as far back as 2006 then again in 2009 and most recently in 2013, he was still in a position to go shopping on the Console credit card in 2016 because the HSE felt hamstrung. If they acted on him they risked closing down the vital helpline provided by Console and they couldn’t take that risk.

We paid dearly for the outsourcing of the responsibility of such a vital service. The entire sector will now pay dearly by way if reduced donations.

It is a progressive step that the Government accepted our Motion last night and with the political will to carry through on the premise of the Motion we can hopefully avoid a future outrage and a restoration of the public trust in a sector which should continue to play a pivotal role in civic society even if we take back responsibility for some vital services.

Anne Marie McNally is a founding member of the Social Democrats. Follow Anne Marie on Twitter: @amomcnally

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