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Console. Charity, Irish-style
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The HSE are guilty of putting temptation in kellys way,why did they keep filling his piggybank.Has anyone from the HSE actually apologised or will anyone be demoted over this.
Why did it take over a year for an audit of the charity to be complete,would this be unusual.
There are over two hundred charities involved with suicide which in itself is totally ridiculous,if audits of them all are to take place and the audits take a year to complete we will be at this forever.
We definitely need tightening up of new charities now.No one should be allowed to set up a charity if there are already enough charities in existence to meet needs.The HSE needs to stop farming out services,handing over taxpayers money and then allowing this money to be squandered under their noses.
We will never know how much Kelly took because there will be no record of cash in envelopes.He could also have cashed large numbers of cheques particularly if he asked people to make the cheques out to him.If his wife was using her maiden name for some transactions it will be even harder to trawl through the records.0 -
Really? You blame "the country" for the corruption of some individuals? Sure ya do - apart from yourself of course. :rolleyes:Joeytheparrot wrote: »Yes
The state should be running a lot if not most of the services that are run by charity in this country.0 -
A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »Have you no compassion?
We were all annoyed about the Rehab controversy, it was quite disgraceful. But nobody here has lost a night's sleep over it. We move on. There's no need to be so harsh to a woman who attempted to take her own life.
What about the vulnerable people that console and rehab care for? what about the employees of bothIt was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.
Terry Pratchet
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The HSE are guilty of putting temptation in kellys way,why did they keep filling his piggybank.Has anyone from the HSE actually apologised or will anyone be demoted over this.
Why did it take over a year for an audit of the charity to be complete,would this be unusual.
There are over two hundred charities involved with suicide which in itself is totally ridiculous,if audits of them all are to take place and the audits take a year to complete we will be at this forever.
We definitely need tightening up of new charities now.No one should be allowed to set up a charity if there are already enough charities in existence to meet needs.The HSE needs to stop farming out services,handing over taxpayers money and then allowing this money to be squandered under their noses.
We will never know how much Kelly took because there will be no record of cash in envelopes.He could also have cashed large numbers of cheques particularly if he asked people to make the cheques out to him.If his wife was using her maiden name for some transactions it will be even harder to trawl through the records.
No Mary ,the Kellys are responsible.
They ,alledgedly screwed thing up.
However, someone in the monitoring establishment should 'walk' given the alledged history of the Kelleys0 -
No end to the slimyness of this guy :
Disgraced former chief executive of suicide prevention charity Console Paul Kelly threatened to sue the HSE if any details about the financial scandal emerged just 24 hours before RTÉ’s high-profile exposé on the organisation.
http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/console-fallout-paul-kelly-in-threat-to-sue-if-details-released-410697.html
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.- 1980s: Mr Kelly impersonates a doctor at a Dublin hospital and a social worker in Cumbria, passing it off as a student prank.
- 2002: Mr Kelly sets up Console after the death of his sister Susan.
- 2006: Concerns are raised by a HSE official over Console governance issues.
- 2009: A second HSE official privately requests a review of the charity’s documentation between 2004 and 2009.
- 2011: Department of Health officials meet Mr Kelly after a whistleblower tells them the charity chief pretended to be a doctor in the 1980s. No action taken.
- 2015: HSE internal auditors begin an examination of Console’s financial records. The audit is delayed a number of months at the request of Mr Kelly.
- February-April 2016: Completed audit highlights a series of misspending scandals. The Garda fraud squad is informed.
- June 23, 2016: RTÉ Prime Time revelations.
- July 2016: Mr Kelly is forced to step down. After Revenue Commissioners, Office of Corporate Enforcement and other bodies open investigations, a decision is made to wind down Console, and Pieta House takes on its services.
0 - 1980s: Mr Kelly impersonates a doctor at a Dublin hospital and a social worker in Cumbria, passing it off as a student prank.
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timeline
You forgot to add:
July 2016: Just before being admitted to a psychiatric institution 'for his own protection', Kelly and his wife rent a lock-up facility to store piles of files and computers relating to Console, some of which may have been stolen from the Console offices after the appointment of an interim Chief Executive
July 2016: A horse, suspected to have been bought with Console funds for Kelly's daughter is stolen by 2 men posing as Gardai0 -
But Brendan Bendar,the HSE are responsible to a large extent,why didn't they report Kelly to the Charities Regulator.
Why didn't they go to the Gardai with the credit card bills.
They are frantically now trying to prove taxpayers money wasn't squandered,e.g.,they gave money to Console for telephone lines and Console didn't spend it all,this means Console was good value for money!!!!!!!!!what the hell.In actual fact taxpayers money is involved because the HSE made up the shortfall in the funding and if Kelly hadn't been stealing so much money there probably wouldn't have been shortfalls at all.
The HSE knew people were doing all sorts of fundraising thinking some good would come out of family tragedies and still they said nothing all the while chasing Kelly for explanations about designer clothes,dentist bills,meals out all being paid for with Console Credit Cards.Did anyone even think about maybe putting a limit on these credit cards or cutting half of them up.How many credit cards did Kelly have,was he maximising the limit on them all.
We haven't even heard the worst of this yet,no wonder Kelly signed himself into John Of Gods.
Tony O Brien who is head of the HSE should be offering his resignation over this instead of commenting that it reads like the script of Catch me if You can.His organisation let the thousands upon thousands of people who contributed to Console down and there has to be consequences for this.0 -
They did go to the Gardai, last February if you read the Examiner article.Why didn't they go to the Gardai with the credit card bills.
The only person who could put a limit or cut up cards is Console. The HSE never owned Console, so if they were to cut up a Console credit card, they could be sued for damages themselves.Did anyone even think about maybe putting a limit on these credit cards or cutting half of them up.How many credit cards did Kelly have,was he maximising the limit on them all.0 -
The HSE were funding console and the amount of funding they gave went up dramatically in the last few years,did anyone ask why the funding had to increase so much and were was the money going.
The HSE could have gone to the credit Card companies and said there was an audit taking place and any items charged to the credit card that didn't relate to the work of Console should be refused at point of payment,e.g. designer clothing,penalty points and dental bills.
I believe the HSE only got worried because Primetime had gathered enough evidence to put the facts to the public.Why did the HSE only go to the Gardai in February 2016 when they knew years before this that there was problems.
Again,why didn't they go to the Charity Regulator,surely anyone who has a suspicion about a charity should go to the regulator and the HSE had a lot more than suspicions to go on.
The HSE have a lot of questions to answer.0 -
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The HSE are guilty of putting temptation in kellys way,........
You can't really think that's a road worth going down though
Be like if the local planning officer was taking money and saying " ah sure them developers " or any other example
The guy is just a slithery yoke, by squandering money and reducing 4 phone lines to 2 , he has blood on his hands0 -
I definitely think HSE officials should be disciplined over this.
No one stopped Kelly so he came to believe Console belonged to him and he could do what he liked.
He wouldn't answer questions put to him about the audit and the audit was actually deferred at his request,isn't this unbelievable.0 -
It's really amazing how one character could hold sway to such a degree but not surprising given his overall behavioural profile. Angela Kerins at least had very strong connections and political affiliations but what connections does Paul Kelly have?He wouldn't answer questions put to him about the audit and the audit was actually deferred at his request,isn't this unbelievable.0 -
It's not the HSEs job to micromanage a charitoes financial affairs.
Saying the HSE could have gone to banks and credit card companies to stop console spending is just utter nonsense. The HSE would have no power at all to do that.It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.
Terry Pratchet
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It is the HSES job to monitor where taxpayer money is going.
The HSE knew for years there were problems with Console and it put thousands of taxpayers money into the pockets of Paul Kelly up to the very day Primetime aired the programme.The HSE didn't even report their concerns to the charity Regulator,what on earth did the HSE think the Government was funding a charity regulator for if not to deal with the likes of Kelly.
Finding out where taxpayers money is being spent is not micro managing a charities financial affairs.The rent wasn't being paid to landlords,the counsellors were being paid a pittance,the land lines had been cut and yet the credit card bills were astronomical.
It was most definitely the job of the HSE to refuse to give Console any more money while Kelly was in charge.He should have been suspended and all credit cards he had access to cancelled after he was called in in 2011 to explain the pretending to be a doctor.He clearly wasn't fit to be in charge of an organisation which was raking in the amount of money Console was.
It was easier to just leave Kelly where he was rather than disband the organisation and hand it over to Pieta house,this is what happened eventually anyway but not before hundreds of thousands of euros donated to help console people bereaved by suicide was squandered.0 -
Joeytheparrot wrote: »It's not the HSEs job to micromanage a charitoes financial affairs.
Saying the HSE could have gone to banks and credit card companies to stop console spending is just utter nonsense. The HSE would have no power at all to do that.
That's crazy.
They should know full well where the money is going and have proper checks in place.
Sure the government will be able to make another group of staff to do a special task where they will investigate which will cost millions maybe even a billion to come to a conclusion that yes there actually was wrong doing but will have no power to do anything oh and the icing on the cake will be a huge legal bill to be paid by us tax paying fools.
Also there will be a claim by these robbing scum bags that their health and so on was put at risk by any investigation.
Mind boggles.0 -
I'm really not buying the sudden illness at all.
If mental health issues are brought on by somebody asking a few tricky questions about stuff you know you did wrong, then we should be seeing MH issues and hospital stays up and down the country for all sorts of crime.
Or is it just the CEO's of charity that swoon like a victorian damsel the minute someone happens to ask "eh, lads, where has that €500,000 of taxpayer and public contributions gone"
I can imagine that some scobe in a tracksuit caught with a robbed car would get short shrift if they tried to neck a few paracetamol and then tried to sue the state for the distress caused to them when the Gardai were nasty enough to catch them. But we tolerate it to an extraordinary degree from our white-collar criminals.0 -
It is the HSES job to monitor where taxpayer money is going.
The HSE knew for years there were problems with Console and it put thousands of taxpayers money into the pockets of Paul Kelly up to the very day Primetime aired the programme.The HSE didn't even report their concerns to the charity Regulator,what on earth did the HSE think the Government was funding a charity regulator for if not to deal with the likes of Kelly.
Finding out where taxpayers money is being spent is not micro managing a charities financial affairs.The rent wasn't being paid to landlords,the counsellors were being paid a pittance,the land lines had been cut and yet the credit card bills were astronomical.
It was most definitely the job of the HSE to refuse to give Console any more money while Kelly was in charge.He should have been suspended and all credit cards he had access to cancelled after he was called in in 2011 to explain the pretending to be a doctor.He clearly wasn't fit to be in charge of an organisation which was raking in the amount of money Console was.
It was easier to just leave Kelly where he was rather than disband the organisation and hand it over to Pieta house,this is what happened eventually anyway but not before hundreds of thousands of euros donated to help console people bereaved by suicide was squandered.
Yes it's the HSEs job to monitor where taxpayers funding is going. I completely agree with that. However Consoles funding was not entirely from the HSE. For the HSE to step in and cancel credit cards as you suggested earlier goes far beyond monitoring into the HSE actually managing the charities finances itself. It is not the HSEs role to financially manage the charities it funds.It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.
Terry Pratchet
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punisher5112 wrote: »They should know full well where the money is going and have proper checks in place.
Yes but the suggestion the HSE should have started approaching consoles credit card companies to shut them down goes far beyond having checks and balances in place. That is simply not under the HSEs remit because that is the HSE stepping into actually financial management. Not checks and balances.It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.
Terry Pratchet
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Imagine actually saying the money spent on designer clothes was for the benefit of the homeless,You couldn't make this stuff up.
Sounds like something your man Mugatu from Zoolander would come up with. Operation Derelict on the streets of Dublin. :rolleyes:
It's unfortunate that people doing frontline work and those who benefit from it will be the ones who suffer for it. Well done to Pieta House for absorbing these services but often in this type of scenario, the receiving service has to agree to take on the operations of another on a smaller budget than what was originally made available to the now defunct service.
The only good thing is that the more this happens the likelier that widespread audits will take place. I'm aware through personal experience of one charity in particular that is long overdue for one. Management receiving expensive gifts and a weekend away in a plush hotel for Christmas for example.0 -
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http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/auditors-met-considerable-resistance-from-former-console-chief-1.2723064
What does Tony O Brien mean when he said the audit was complex and challenging,why did PAC ask him to elaborate on this.
The audit was to take twelve weeks which I would consider reasonable,it took over a year and all that time the HSE was pouring money in.There was a huge increase in funding in 2013 and that was after concerns had been raised about Paul Kelly.
The auditors had access to the spending,they saw the credit card bills and when they asked for copies of the bills they were given bills with restaurant names for example crossed out.Surely they should have investigated whose names were on these credit cards at least,one credit card was in the name of an ex employee who had left Console six years previously.
If I was in a senior position in the HSE I would have personally got to Paul Kelly once that audit had started and demanded the credit cards.
Paul Kelly was using those credit cards to spend money given by the HSE to the organisation as well as money donated by the public.The public were sitting waiting to access the public mental health services which aren't funded properly and the HSE was donating money to Paul Kellys holiday fund.How many more charities are operated in the same manner,we don't know because we don't have access to their credit card spending,the HSE does but it sits on its hands saying nothing instead of involving the charity regulator.The HSE are now busy trying to cover their asses and trying to prove public money wasn't involved,they haven't even said in future they will refer concerns to the charity regulator.
If I was in a senior position in the HSE I would have personally gone to Paul Kelly once that audit had started and demanded the credit cards.
I would have investigated who was on the board so that steps could have been taken to dismiss Paul Kelly as CEO.
I would most definitely have brought the matter to the charity regulator if I was of the opinion it wasn't my job to investigate where money donated by the public was going.
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/focus-on-suicide-might-add-to-problem-expert-1.546693
I have always agreed with this point of view and really wonder about all the attention focussed on suicide,all the cycling to raise money and the running and the other endeavours.It all seems pretty pointless to me and I think the HSE should take stock now and ask why the numbers taking their lives are increasing in spite of the money being spent at present.Maybe its time now to set up mental health services staffed by properly trained people in every community and run by the HSE instead of diverting money to two hundred charities.We should have properly qualified staff funded by the HSE available to every school in the country as if we want to reach young people we need to get to them where they spend most time.
Good could come out of all of this if we take a long hard look at where the money is going and if we had someone brave enough to take action even though suicide is an emotive subject.0 -
The HSE could have gone to the credit Card companies and said there was an audit taking place and any items charged to the credit card that didn't relate to the work of Console should be refused at point of payment,e.g. designer clothing,penalty points and dental bills.
Which bit of 'not HSE credit cards' are you having trouble understanding? The HSE has no control over Console credit cards. If anyone approached the banks about Console credit cards, the bank would say "Sorry, these are Console credit cards, so we take our instructions from Console". Legally, the banks could do nothing else. Fortunately, the HSE folks understand the legal basics and would have the sense not to try anything so ridiculous.
Your belief is clearly based around taking a great opportunity to attack the HSE. Organisations like the HSE can't go to the Gardai with 'problems'. They need clear evidence, and when they had the evidence, they went to the Gardai.I believe the HSE only got worried because Primetime had gathered enough evidence to put the facts to the public.Why did the HSE only go to the Gardai in February 2016 when they knew years before this that there was problems.
Actually, they did stop Kelly. If no-one had stopped Kelly, he would still be running Console, milking the credit cards and more.I definitely think HSE officials should be disciplined over this.
No one stopped Kelly so he came to believe Console belonged to him and he could do what he liked.http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/auditors-met-considerable-resistance-from-former-console-chief-1.2723064
What does Tony O Brien mean when he said the audit was complex and challenging,why did PAC ask him to elaborate on this.
The audit was to take twelve weeks which I would consider reasonable,it took over a year and all that time the HSE was pouring money in.There was a huge increase in funding in 2013 and that was after concerns had been raised about Paul Kelly.
The auditors had access to the spending,they saw the credit card bills and when they asked for copies of the bills they were given bills with restaurant names for example crossed out.Surely they should have investigated whose names were on these credit cards at least,one credit card was in the name of an ex employee who had left Console six years previously.
If I was in a senior position in the HSE I would have personally got to Paul Kelly once that audit had started and demanded the credit cards.
Paul Kelly was using those credit cards to spend money given by the HSE to the organisation as well as money donated by the public.The public were sitting waiting to access the public mental health services which aren't funded properly and the HSE was donating money to Paul Kellys holiday fund.How many more charities are operated in the same manner,we don't know because we don't have access to their credit card spending,the HSE does but it sits on its hands saying nothing instead of involving the charity regulator.The HSE are now busy trying to cover their asses and trying to prove public money wasn't involved,they haven't even said in future they will refer concerns to the charity regulator.
If I was in a senior position in the HSE I would have personally gone to Paul Kelly once that audit had started and demanded the credit cards.
I would have investigated who was on the board so that steps could have been taken to dismiss Paul Kelly as CEO.
I would most definitely have brought the matter to the charity regulator if I was of the opinion it wasn't my job to investigate where money donated by the public was going.
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/focus-on-suicide-might-add-to-problem-expert-1.546693
So you're the 'tough guy' (or gal) who would have 'demanded' the credit cards from Kelly? He would have laughed you out the door, as you would have absolutely no control over Console. The only control the HSE had would be to stop funding, which would immediately have impacted the hundreds of people using Console services. Yes, Console funding increased, as did the services and activities provided.
He had no criminal record. THe Probation Act was applied to that long historical evidence.Finding out where taxpayers money is being spent is not micro managing a charities financial affairs.The rent wasn't being paid to landlords,the counsellors were being paid a pittance,the land lines had been cut and yet the credit card bills were astronomical.
It was most definitely the job of the HSE to refuse to give Console any more money while Kelly was in charge.He should have been suspended and all credit cards he had access to cancelled after he was called in in 2011 to explain the pretending to be a doctor.He clearly wasn't fit to be in charge of an organisation which was raking in the amount of money Console was.
So what standard or measure do you now want to apply to charity CEOs? If they were caught peeing on the street 20 years ago, do you disqualify them now? If perhaps they have some drug or alcohol offences in their past, do you now disqualify them from running drug / alcohol services? If they were caught speeding, are they now to be banned from running a charity?
You're suffering from 20/20 hindsight and a large dose of indignation.0 -
Joeytheparrot wrote: »Yes but the suggestion the HSE should have started approaching consoles credit card companies to shut them down goes far beyond having checks and balances in place. That is simply not under the HSEs remit because that is the HSE stepping into actually financial management. Not checks and balances.
I never mentioned credit cards.
I fully agree by the way but they really should have done something.
Data protection and all that legal stuff would stop them from been furnished with credit card details.
I believe revenue should be investigated to how they let this pass.0 -
If Kelly had been told by the HSE that the funding was stopping unless the credit cards were handed over he would have co operated.He had taken so much money Console couldnt pay staff wages,couldnt pay rent,couldnt pay telephone costs,he was utterly dependent on the large sums of money being paid in by the HSE and this money was going out as quickly as it came in because the Kellys were living a lifestyle they couldnt afford.
Dont tell me the HSE couldnt have written to the banks to state that they suspected fraud was being committed by the CEO of Console using cards which were fraudently in an ex employees name.Surely the HSE could have contacted this ex employee to advise her Paul Kelly was booking long haul flights in her name.She could have then gone to the Gardai and the banks to report this fraud.
The HSE knew full well there were governance problems with Console,they watched people organise charity events the length and breath of this country from 2013 on and they didnt even bother to pick up the phone to the charities regulator to request that Consoles licence be revoked.
Why if the audit was so complex was Kelly allowed to keep spending money,the details of the audit will be available this week fifteen months after the HSE went in.If the spending on the credit cards continued right up until the primetime programme someone in the HSE needs to account for this.
Also how do you know the services provided increased with the extra funding,the phone lines were cut,the staff werent paid.The next thing to look into is the qualifications of the staff,Kelly was selling programmes to individuals so they could qualify as counsellors,presumably the point of buying the Educational cert from Kelly was to get employment with Console,did that mean that someone with six weeks study could be employed as a counsellor.0 -
I stopped donating to charities a long time ago.
Money is not well spent and it will take alot of regulation and transparency before ill consider changing my mind.
Hopefully these people get jail. Its white collar crime much like our corrupt bankers0 -
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SimonLynch wrote: »
He shouldn't get the dole.
You can be sure kelly has money stashed away probably 100's of thousands if not millions.0 -
A hse executative worked for console for a year on condition his position in the hse would be kept open, he then returned to the hse?0
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selastich2 wrote: »A hse executative worked for console for a year on condition his position in the hse would be kept open, he then returned to the hse?
Sounds like a fairly normal career break - many public (and some private) sector staff avail of career breaks to expand their skills and knowledge. There is nothing unusual about this at all.
I'm not sure if you really understand how public bodies work. They work under legislation which set out their functions. If they go beyond their functions, they are acting illegally 'ultra vires' is the legal term. If the HSE attempted to do anything with or about Console credit cards, he'd have taken a quick trip down the High Court and injuncted them, and would probably have got a nice damages payment out of them too. And you'd be posting here about what big eejits they were.
Dont tell me the HSE couldnt have written to the banks to state that they suspected fraud was being committed by the CEO of Console using cards which were fraudently in an ex employees name.Surely the HSE could have contacted this ex employee to advise her Paul Kelly was booking long haul flights in her name.She could have then gone to the Gardai and the banks to report this fraud.
The only thing that HSE could control was funding to Console. They entered into an audit process. I'm not 100% clear on the detail, but it was probably a voluntary audit. They could not force Console to cooperate or respond. Their only sanction would have been to withdraw funding, and if they had, we'd have had Kelly and others onto Joe Duffy about how the cruel, heartless HSE were leaving the poor clients out on a limb.
If the HSE took any action without having ALL the details absolutely 100% confirmed (before the audit was completed), they would have been exposed to future damages. They did an audit, and they reported the issue to the Gardai as soon as they had firm evidence.0 -
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a hse person worked in thier inner sanctum for a year and noticed nothing?
I'm not buying it0
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