Prime Time Special on Console

PeterTheEighth

I think this might need a thread. I see he's resigned already.

Six different sets of accounts. :pac:

tayto lover

Is there anything straight anymore?

PeterTheEighth

That's terrible, Paul Kelly using Bertie's name to elicit money from people. Shur we know the only person that is entitled to look for dig outs using Bertie's name is Bertie himself.

Freddiestar

Kelly pretended he was a Doctor and got a job!

Atlantic Dawn

I don't know what's worse, them making up board members or the fact that state agencies gave millions of tax payers money to Console when clearly the board was not as it should be and any basic check could have verified this.

Lady Chatterton

I find this extremely upsetting. It's particularly hurtful to all the families bereaved by suicide who have fundraised tirelessly for Console :mad:

Atlantic Dawn

MrsD007 wrote: »

I find this extremely upsetting. It's particularly hurtful to all the families bereaved by suicide who have fundraised tirelessly for Console :mad:

It will likely destroy the organisation like Rehab. Hopefully they didn't resign with big fat pension and severance packages to make things worse.

Lady Chatterton

Kelly missed his calling, he should have worked for Anglo :rolleyes:

PeterTheEighth

MrsD007 wrote: »

Kelly missed his calling, he should have worked for Anglo :rolleyes:

More like Irish Nationwide tbh.

I bet Fergus Finlay will be on tomorrow baulking about how terrible this is, and not one of the radio interviewers will ever ask him how he can take >100k out of the Barnardo's buckets.

jobless

MrsD007 wrote: »

I find this extremely upsetting. It's particularly hurtful to all the families bereaved by suicide who have fundraised tirelessly for Console :mad:

Are big slap in the face for anyone who fund raised for console.... Charities need to be controlled properly

Atlantic Dawn

I'm afraid to think how secure any personal data they have on clients would be.

ongarite

Half a million in travel expenses in travel to Australia and New Zealand where he has family.
Basically using the charity as his personal fund.

PeterTheEighth

Egg on the face for government departments again... HSE and Revenue. And we think we have learned lessons from the banking fiasco. Not a chance.

The_Valeyard

Very dodgy accounts it seems, former senator who was a board member and she was never told? Id be fuming if I were her. Very suspicious indeed. Further investigation required. Prime Time has its uses, one of the better ways to spend the licence fee.

Atlantic Dawn

PeterTheEighth wrote: »

Egg on the face for government departments again... HSE and Revenue. And we think we have learned lessons from the banking fiasco. Not a chance.

The frightening thing is those same people who signed off and "verified" the details when clear basic information was missing or incorrect will be still in their job signing off many more millions without any punishment or demotion.

RayM

Here's that story about his stint as a 'doctor' in the '80s...

LaLa2004

Who are the accountants?

Second Toughest in_the Freshers

PlayStation or X Box?

Mary63

How could cConsole get 59,000 euros when they submitted incomplete records to the Department of Foreign Affairs,ie the bits relating to expenses paid,surely even a dimwitted official would notice a section was missing.Are we now to believe there was nobody in the Department who could read and analyse the works of fiction presented by Console.How could half a million euros be spent on travel to New Zealand and Australia,surely you would need a few signatures to release the funds,oh,hang on a second,Paul Kelly ,his wife,his sister and their son all worked for Console,they employed each other because they trusted each other.

I want to know asap did they travel first class to these long haul destinations,it should be easy enough to see what seats were booked.

Did all those people riding around Ireland to raise suicide awareness hand over the money collected to Console.

Xyzforsure

Benefacts.ie

Search console!

Very very interesting

Xyzforsure

LaLa2004 wrote: »

Who are the accountants?

Birmingham and co auditor's

It's in the public domain

jimmycrackcorm

PeterTheEighth wrote:

That's terrible, Paul Kelly using Bertie's name to elicit money from people. Shur we know the only person that is entitled to look for dig outs using Bertie's name is Bertie himself.

Astonishing link given Bertie's famous comment about anyone point out the signs of our economic crash should go and commit suicide.

Xyzforsure

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

Astonishing link given Bertie's famous comment about anyone point out the signs of our economic crash should go and commit suicide.

Bertie washed his money through the charity. ..... hilarious

Atlantic Dawn

Xyzforsure wrote: »

Benefacts.ie

Great site, has the accounts too....

Looking at the 2014 accounts...

• Page 41 - Consultancy Fees of €81,528 paid to Paul Kelly (€90,066 in 2013), would that be normal for a charity to pay such a fee to their CEO?
• Page 19 - Merchandising Costs were nearly €56k, wtf was that being spent on, were they doing an Anglo and buying loads of golf balls?

gctest50

https://twitter.com/console_charity/status/746088796949782528

The staff at Console would like to thank you for your patience as we work through these difficult days

Shredding paper all day is hard work.

Dirty filthy scum if they were stealing from the suicidal folk - what next ? stealing milk from the premmie babies and selling it ?

Mary63

Are the consultancy fees separate to his salary costs.

It does appear to be the case that charity CEOS earn very big salaries,I would consider any salary in excess of 80,000 to be big.The salaries dont appear to have gone down even though the money donated must have dried up during the recession.

I am not giving one cent to Console in the future and I have lost a family member to suicide.The thoughts of someone jetting off to Australia on holliers is sickening.

Why didnt the Gardai make a statement today.

drunkmonkey

There's enough there for the ODCE to lock the directors up for life if they persue them. Revenue will have a field day on them as well.

Mary63

Console raised 12 million euros in income between 2005 and 2014,a quarter of this money came from the HSE.

What services apart from counselling does this organisation supply.

Who is overlooking what the HSE is doing with taxpayers money,do they have external auditors.

Xyzforsure

Mary63 wrote: »

Console raised 12 million euros in income between 2005 and 2014,a quarter of this money came from the HSE.

What services apart from counselling does this organisation supply.

Who is overlooking what the HSE is doing with taxpayers money,do they have external auditors.

Hse is a shambles

Atlantic Dawn

Mary63 wrote: »

Console raised 12 million euros in income between 2005 and 2014,a quarter of this money came from the HSE.

What services apart from counselling does this organisation supply.

Who is overlooking what the HSE is doing with taxpayers money,do they have external auditors.

That's over €25k a week they took in :eek:

elastico

Console was established in 2002 by Paul Kelly after he had experienced the grief of losing a loved one by Suicide.


Probably a distant relation that he never met.

dastardly00

Second Toughest in_the Freshers wrote: »

PlayStation or X Box?

Mary63

He is supposed to have lost his sister to suicide,he has been on the TV and radio many times talking about this.

Console was certainly successful in bringing the money in but its questionable whether its existence made the slightest bit of difference to the suicide figures.

I probably am very cynical but I think the cycling for suicide and the walk in the park in darkness isnt going to stop a single person taking their own life.

My sister attended the walking into the light in Fairyhouse this year and she said never again,it was total chaos.I dont know did she have to stump up an entrance fee.

Surely it would be much better for the HSE to put money directly into counselling etc rather than route it through the likes of Console especially when Paul Kellys salary was approximately 90,000 euros.Think how many counsellors could have been employed with the money spent on the holliers.

I heard people talking on liveline today about handing over money to study for a degree in suicide ology,they thought if they got this diploma they would get a job in Console.What is a degree in suicide ology.

Oops69

A kick in teeth for all those who did runs, walks and all kinds of fundraising with their own loved ones lost to suicide in mind , whatever happened to this charity regulator that was supposed to come on stream after the rehab and crc scandals ?.

gctest50

How did someone like this not end up in jail ? pretending to be a doctor and getting a job in a hospital ?

Prime Time Investigates special broadcast on RTÉ One this evening which claimed that Kelly has a “history when it comes to misrepresentation and deception”, including, amongst other things :

the fact that he had once pretended to be a doctor and got a job at the Royal City of Dublin Hospital on Dublin’s Baggot Street.

Mary63

He was probably as good a doctor as some of those idiots that study for seven years.

Its a good job we have Garda vetting now or is it.

gctest50

DanDublin1982

PeterTheEighth wrote: »

More like Irish Nationwide tbh.

I bet Fergus Finlay will be on tomorrow baulking about how terrible this is, and not one of the radio interviewers will ever ask him how he can take >100k out of the Barnardo's buckets.

Fergus Finally doesn't "take" any money from Bernardo's, he is paid a salary to do a job. As with previous similar scandals he will certainly point out how awful this one is. And he'll be right too because it is.

mzungu

Mary63 wrote: »

How could cConsole get 59,000 euros when they submitted incomplete records to the Department of Foreign Affairs,ie the bits relating to expenses paid,surely even a dimwitted official would notice a section was missing.Are we now to believe there was nobody in the Department who could read and analyse the works of fiction presented by Console.How could half a million euros be spent on travel to New Zealand and Australia,surely you would need a few signatures to release the funds,oh,hang on a second,Paul Kelly ,his wife,his sister and their son all worked for Console,they employed each other because they trusted each other.

I want to know asap did they travel first class to these long haul destinations,it should be easy enough to see what seats were booked.

Did all those people riding around Ireland to raise suicide awareness hand over the money collected to Console.

I'd like to know this too. I reckon if he was brazen enough to siphon off half a million from a charity to go there, then I doubt he is the sort of person who would suffer the discomfort of economy class to save a few quid.

Amanda.ie

Its very sad to see this happening to a very good charity who helps so many people in crisis and their families. He is the face of Console but he is not the charity, the people are. If you have raised money as I have take comfort in the fact you helped someone who was in trouble and maybe saved a life.
I think it will be hard for Console to come back from this but people out their still need our help.

elastico

DanDublin1982 wrote: »

Fergus Finally doesn't "take" any money from Bernardo's, he is paid a salary to do a job. As with previous similar scandals he will certainly point out how awful this one is. And he'll be right too because it is.

He pulls €115k I believe.

Why not do it free if he wants to be a mouthpiece for all things charitable?

Make no mistake, most of these people are in it for the money, not because they care.

DanDublin1982

elastico wrote: »

He pulls €115k I believe.

Why not do it free if he wants to be a mouthpiece for all things charitable?

Make no mistake, most of these people are in it for the money, not because they care.

On what basis are you deciding he wants to be a mouthpiece for all things charitable?

He could probably make more money from sitting on a couple of state boards (maybe he does, I don't know). It's not the point though. He does a job as CEO and gets paid for it. I was responding to a point that hes somehow a hypocrite because he will think this stealing from a charity is terrible while hes relatively highly paid himself. Which is ridiculous. The man is entitled to earn a living and if he wasn't CEO of Bernardo's someone else would be.

I'm not prepared to dislike someone because they earn more money than i do and I dont expect anyone to work for free. I wouldn't.

philstar

he pretended to be a priest and a doctor,

seems to me he has a personality disorder, which is common amongst many conmen/women ...they're deluded fantasists who live in their own world

PeterTheEighth

DanDublin1982 wrote: »

Fergus Finally doesn't "take" any money from Bernardo's, he is paid a salary to do a job. As with previous similar scandals he will certainly point out how awful this one is. And he'll be right too because it is.

I respect your opinion Dan, but I passed the Barnardo's bucket when I was in Dublin last, and the first question that crossed my mind was "how many of those buckets go in to Fergus Finlay's pocket before the kids get anything". And for this reason I would never donate money to Barnardos.

PeterTheEighth

Just found this online. (Get it while it's hot as it may be pulled) This is Paul Kelly's speech at a Suicide Prevention 2012 Seminar. And this was in Auckland, so that possibly explains some of the money that was spent on what have been described as "junkets to the southern hemisphere"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0DN4d31pd0

He starts by saying: "It's only a short time ago that my own sister Sharon died by Suicide"... have we actually worked out if this is true or not?

DanDublin1982

PeterTheEighth wrote: »

I respect your opinion Dan, but I passed the Barnardo's bucket when I was in Dublin last, and the first question that crossed my mind was "how many of those buckets go in to Fergus Finlay's pocket before the kids get anything". And for this reason I would never donate money to Barnardos.

I think thats a perfectly reasonable stance fwiw. The same applies to almost any charity however.

philstar

PeterTheEighth wrote: »

He starts by saying: "It's only a short time ago that my own sister Sharon died by Suicide"... have we actually worked out if this is true or not?

and...knowing what we know now about the guy, thats a very relevant question

PeterTheEighth

philstar wrote: »

this maybe out of line...but...knowing what we know now about the guy, i wonder did she really die of suicide and not natural causes??

But I thought that was the insinuation against him though Phil? I heard it phrased that "he SAID that his sister had died by suicide" ... in the same way that they would have reported that "he SAID that he was a doctor".

does anybody genuinely know was this part of his story true at least?

The Black Oil

Just watched it. Shameful practices.

selastich2

DanDublin1982 wrote: »

On what basis are you deciding he wants to be a mouthpiece for all things charitable?

He could probably make more money from sitting on a couple of state boards (maybe he does, I don't know). It's not the point though. He does a job as CEO and gets paid for it. I was responding to a point that hes somehow a hypocrite because he will think this stealing from a charity is terrible while hes relatively highly paid himself. Which is ridiculous. The man is entitled to earn a living and if he wasn't CEO of Bernardo's someone else would be.

I'm not prepared to dislike someone because they earn more money than i do and I dont expect anyone to work for free. I wouldn't.

I dont expect anyone to work for free. I wouldn't.


Ironic as FF and these guys make most of their money by getting volunteers working for free

DanDublin1982

selastich2 wrote: »

I dont expect anyone to work for free. I wouldn't.


Ironic as FF and these guys make most of their money by getting volunteers working for free

Whats that got to do with me?