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Console. Charity, Irish-style
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What evidence did they need,they had credit card bills so they knew where the money spent that way was gone.They have no further evidence now regarding that spending than they had the day the audit started.
Paul Kelly frustated that audit and you are excusing that by saying his rights to due process had to be respected.What about the rights of people who did the fundraising in memory of their loved one,how sickening to think fundraising continued on after the HSE saw where hundreds of thousands of euros had already gone since 2002 or whenever the charity was set up.This was kellys second charity so history repeating itself.0 -
The HSE had no evidence of credit card spending until they did the audit. It is completely untrue (and I suspect you well know that it is completely untrue) to say that they have no further evidence now than they did the day the audit started. They did not have credit card bills until they did the audit, and they did not have any explanation for the credit card spending until the audit completed.What evidence did they need,they had credit card bills so they knew where the money spent that way was gone.They have no further evidence now regarding that spending than they had the day the audit started.Paul Kelly frustated that audit and you are excusing that by saying his rights to due process had to be respected.What about the rights of people who did the fundraising in memory of their loved one,how sickening to think fundraising continued on after the HSE saw where hundreds of thousands of euros had already gone since 2002 or whenever the charity was set up.This was kellys second charity so history repeating itself.
It is not about ME saying his rights to due process must be respected. It is about ME telling you that if you take a case like this to any Court without going through due process, it will be thrown out. Your indignation does not stand up in Court. Facts and evidence gathered through sound processes stand up in Court.0 -
The HSE gave Paul Kelly 590,000 euros no questions asked and he and his family treated this money as earned income.The more the HSE gave the more Keely spent.
Console,ie Kelly because everyone else employed there seemed to be asleep submitted different accounts to the HSE.Was any action taken on this,who signed off on those accounts does it have to be a qualified accountant.
We can only be thankful that a person with a titter of sense,David Hall was finally sent in to take decisive action.
We can only hope in the future that the HSE will put proper safeguards in place so no one else can loot taxpayers money under the HSES nose.
I dont know how anyone can say this isnt happening in other charities,all we know for sure is if the HSE are involved they arent supervising taxpayers money properly.0 -
I still dont understand why the HSE didnt call the Gardai to the office when they saw the extent of the embezzlement.Why wasnt Kelly removed then and the files,laptops etc secured.
Why didnt the HSE get an injunction to prevent his access to the money.The Judge could have got answers from kelly about the spending,he or she wouldnt have waited a year while bureaucrats faffed about with an audit that was basically about proving information given was lies.
Please tell me things will be different when it comes to the next scandal and that we have learnt something from this.0 -
I still dont understand why the HSE didnt call the Gardai to the office when they saw the extent of the embezzlement.Why wasnt Kelly removed then and the files,laptops etc secured.
Why didnt the HSE get an injunction to prevent his access to the money.The Judge could have got answers from kelly about the spending,he or she wouldnt have waited a year while bureaucrats faffed about with an audit that was basically about proving information given was lies.
Please tell me things will be different when it comes to the next scandal and that we have learnt something from this.
this is the HSE you are talking about. Learning is not their strong point.0 -
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I know but even taking that into account the console debacle is beyond belief.
If I gave employees credi cards to spend on official business and I see my money gone and nothing to show for it but outstanding bills wouldnt I be perfectly entitled to serk explanations.
Surely i could sack that employee on the spot if he has used my money for groceries,dental bills etc.
Is this not how the real world works.
In three years the Kellys ran up half a million on credit card bills and no one queried this,I just dont understand this and the HSE cant explain this either.
This means anyone involved in any charity funded by the HSE can do the same,they can stonewall an audit indefinitely even though the credit card issuers can supply copies of bills.
This is just beyond my inferior intelligence.
I was naive enough to think we had given the Gardai enough powers to investigate suspected crime,obviously not.0 -
I know but even taking that into account the console debacle is beyond belief.
If I gave employees credi cards to spend on official business and I see my money gone and nothing to show for it but outstanding bills wouldnt I be perfectly entitled to serk explanations.
Surely i could sack that employee on the spot if he has used my money for groceries,dental bills etc.
Is this not how the real world works.
In the real world, there are many legal differences between the powers of an employer and the powers of a funding body. Why would you expect a funder to have the same powers?
They did call the Gardai when they had firm evidence of the extent of the problem, which was last February. If they had attempted to get Kelly removed or get files or laptops, they would have found themselves (as I've explained to you several times before) on the wrong end of a High Court injunction and probably ended up paying large damages payments to Kelly. How annoyed would you be then?I still dont understand why the HSE didnt call the Gardai to the office when they saw the extent of the embezzlement.Why wasnt Kelly removed then and the files,laptops etc secured.
Why didnt the HSE get an injunction to prevent his access to the money.
The HSE gave Console money to provide services, which Console continued to provide, while continueing to work quietly and professionally in the background to gather the required evidence. David Hall (who I agree did a good job) was able to use the evidence previously gathered to take his decisive action, while he revelled in all the publicity that the role got for him. Without evidence, Hall could have done nothing.The HSE gave Paul Kelly 590,000 euros no questions asked and he and his family treated this money as earned income.The more the HSE gave the more Keely spent.
Console,ie Kelly because everyone else employed there seemed to be asleep submitted different accounts to the HSE.Was any action taken on this,who signed off on those accounts does it have to be a qualified accountant.
We can only be thankful that a person with a titter of sense,David Hall was finally sent in to take decisive action.
We can only hope in the future that the HSE will put proper safeguards in place so no one else can loot taxpayers money under the HSES nose.
I dont know how anyone can say this isnt happening in other charities,all we know for sure is if the HSE are involved they arent supervising taxpayers money properly.
The HSE has no regulatory role in supervising charities. They fund services - they are not a regulator.0 -
The HSE didnt refer this matter to the regulator,why not,there was more than enough disquiet to let this official know whats happening.
How can a family embezzle 500,000 from a HSE charity and no one notices.How can spending on one credit card go from 8000 euros to 59,000 euros in a couple of years and no red flags go up.
There is not one good reason why Kelly shouldnt have been asked to step aside once the HSE auditors went in.How could he seek high court protection when he had embezzled five hundred grand and unlike god knows how much cash disappeared the credit cards he had control of showed the sorry tale.
This is just a nonsensical excuse for a bureaucratic cock up.The HSE were guilty in the first place for allowing embezzlement on such a scale to go unnoticed and they compounded by allowing kelly to continue on for another year.
Kelly couldnt explain the restaurant bills,the designer clothes,his whole household spending in fact and this must have been obvious since 2015.The audit should have been abandoned and a criminal investigation commenced,hopefully this is what will happen the next time we find ourselves here.0 -
Kelly was a first class conman through his life ,now angela kerrins is claiming her harassment caused medical problems including supposed suicide attempt ,no doubt hoping for a huge claim, greed is these peoples problem and from a source which was meant for disabled and ill people,these people are heartless and selfish only in it for what they can take out of it for themselves and their disgraceful salaries knows no bounds,there was one charity head not sure now of his name but he took 750,000 euros that was collected on streets of Ireland and put it into his own personal pension fund this happened about 2or 3 years ago0
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Question for 2RockMountain... Could the HSE not have TEMPOARILY suspended funding to Colsole while the audit was ongoing. To offset public backlash, they could have diverted those funds to Pieta house for example.0
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Kidchameleon wrote: »Question for 2RockMountain... Could the HSE not have TEMPOARILY suspended funding to Colsole while the audit was ongoing. To offset public backlash, they could have diverted those funds to Pieta house for example.
I'm not a spokesperson for the HSE, so perhaps you'd like to ask them. Or perhaps you'd like to read through the evidence of Tony O'Brien at the Dail committee last week.
My guess is that
a) They didn't have enough evidence to justify such an action until late in the audit process, and
b) Pieta House or other providers wouldn't have the capacity to pick up this level of support at short notice.barney4001 wrote: »Kelly was a first class conman through his life ,now angela kerrins is claiming her harassment caused medical problems including supposed suicide attempt ,no doubt hoping for a huge claim, greed is these peoples problem and from a source which was meant for disabled and ill people,these people are heartless and selfish only in it for what they can take out of it for themselves and their disgraceful salaries knows no bounds,there was one charity head not sure now of his name but he took 750,000 euros that was collected on streets of Ireland and put it into his own personal pension fund this happened about 2or 3 years ago
Yes, the Kerins example is very interesting - and is a good example of what would most likely have happened in the Console case if the HSE had acted before they had sufficient evidence.The HSE didnt refer this matter to the regulator,why not,there was more than enough disquiet to let this official know whats happening.
How can a family embezzle 500,000 from a HSE charity and no one notices.How can spending on one credit card go from 8000 euros to 59,000 euros in a couple of years and no red flags go up.
There is not one good reason why Kelly shouldnt have been asked to step aside once the HSE auditors went in.How could he seek high court protection when he had embezzled five hundred grand and unlike god knows how much cash disappeared the credit cards he had control of showed the sorry tale.
This is just a nonsensical excuse for a bureaucratic cock up.The HSE were guilty in the first place for allowing embezzlement on such a scale to go unnoticed and they compounded by allowing kelly to continue on for another year.
Kelly couldnt explain the restaurant bills,the designer clothes,his whole household spending in fact and this must have been obvious since 2015.The audit should have been abandoned and a criminal investigation commenced,hopefully this is what will happen the next time we find ourselves here.
Can I suggest that we please, please, please stick to some actual facts in this discussion?
1) Console is not 'a HSE charity'. The HSE does not have charities. The HSE funds some services through charities, but it does not own those charities. The HSE does not regulate any charities.
2) How did you work out that 'no red flags' went up? Of course red flags went up, and the audit process continued to gather the evidence required to support action. A report was made to the Gardai when evidence was available.
3) Who exactly do you believe should have asked Kelly to step aside (given that I've explained to you repeatedly that the HSE has no role in regulating charities or appointing or firing CEOs)?
4) Why would have expected the HSE to report the matter to the Charity Regulator, given that the Charity regulator "has no role in investigating fraud nor any remit to carry out that type of investigation" http://www.thejournal.ie/charity-console-tanaiste-regulator-2850903-Jun2016/0 -
I always donate whatever I can afford to the charity I make use of. They've helped me so much. I could never afford what I get from them if they weren't a charity, so whenever I'm there they get whatever's in my pockets.
after all the various charity scandals I never give anything at all now as like Kelly and kerrins and just how many more of their ilk are out there put me off donating anything maybe clothes etc or household items I no longer need ,but no cash at all0 -
The Gardai could have invited Kelly in for questioning if the credit card bills and the plundered bank account details were forwarded to the fraud squad.
The HSE could have made an announcement saying they were referring console to the charity regulator toothless though that office is.That would have been enough to stop further donations.
The public had a right to know the keys had spent 500,000 euros in three years,this isnt even the total amount,they could have spent the same amount in cash.
Pieta could have taken over,the services cant have been that extensive if Paul kelly was too stingy to pay wages.The phone lines had been cut to two so even if you were in crisis you couldnt get through to console anyway.
Condole couldnt survive without hse funding so to all intents and purposes the charity was being run by console for the HSE.
Again how does this amount of money disappear into a black hole.Why didnt anybody ask what was happening to the HSE money,is this lack of governance the main reason why our health service is so dire and beyond reform.
How many more organisations in receipt of HSE money are diverting funds to individuals bank accounts.0 -
In RTE news site now that they have been granted access to one of their accounts again, in order to receive their social welfare payments. They are penniless apparantly, God love them...:rolleyes:
http://www.rte.ie/news/2016/0719/803392-console-high-court/The High Court has lifted a freezing order on one bank account belonging to Console founders Paul and Patricia Kelly to allow them to process social welfare cheques.
However Mr Justice Paul Gilligan has refused to allow the couple access to savings of almost €7,000 to pay their legal bills.
Solicitor James McGuill told the court his clients were now in extreme financial difficulty and were entirely dependent on social welfare payments.
They have no other cash assets or income. He said they were waiting to receive a P45 from Console so Paul Kelly could proceed with an application to the Department of Social Protection.
Mr McGuill said the couple needed to be able to operate a bank account to cash their social welfare payments. The account in question was overdrawn and allowing them access to it would not be damaging to Console.
The couple estimate their living costs, excluding mortgage payments, to be €396 a week for food, transport, toiletries, healthcare and other items.
They have a family home which is subject to a mortgage and there is one other property which had been occupied by the charity but was now vacant.
Mr McGuill said this property could be rented in the future. He said his clients had no other income until one or other of them got a job and the prospects of that happening in the near future were unlikely given the current situation.
He said they also needed to access a savings account containing almost €7,000 in order to pay the costs of legal representation.
Counsel for Console Keith Farry said the articles and memorandum of association of Console specifically prohibited Paul and Patricia Kelly from receiving any income from the charity.
Therefore, he said, any money in their accounts must belong to Console if they had no other form of income.
The judge refused to change the freezing orders to allow them access to the savings account. He said the Kellys must submit a sworn statement outlining where the money had come from and if it is their personal property.
He adjourned the case until 28 July.
The judge had earlier asked to hear from the provisional liquidator appointed last week about the level of cooperation he was receiving from the Kellys.
Mr Farry said the liquidator had written to Paul and Patricia Kelly last Thursday asking them to fill out a questionnaire but there had been no response.
McGuill said the questionnaire was extremely detailed and the answers had clear legal consequences. He said it would be irresponsible for the Kellys to answer the questions without legal advice or access to their records, control of which had all been taken by the liquidator and Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement.
Kelly's sister claims signature was forged
Separately, the court has relaxed injunctions against Mr Kelly's sister Joan McKenna after she submitted sworn statements to say she never had any part in the running or the finances of Console.
Ms McKenna also told the court she had engaged a handwriting expert to confirm her signature had been forged on documents submitted to the Companies Registration Office listing her as a director.
Judge Gilligan agreed to relax orders against her which were freezing the assets and accounts of Console.
However, he said he could not yet release her from the case at this preliminary stage.
Counsel for Console Keith Farry said while Ms McKenna said her signature had been forged, there had been no confirmation or denial of this by the Kellys or any auditor who had dealt with the documentation.
In those circumstances, Mr Farry said Ms McKenna would have to remain as a named defendant in the case for now.
Counsel for Ms McKenna also applied for her costs to be awarded in her favour but Judge Gilligan said he could not make a decision on that at this stage.
The court was also told that the Kellys' son Tim has also engaged his own legal team and was not objecting to injunctions against him continuing until later this month when he expects to make an application to the court.0 -
Hopefully now the houses will be taken off them and put up for auction.There is probably a mortgage on the house in Clane though and now there is no money to make repayments.
Its too late now to get any much of the money back,it was frittered on holidays and expensive meals and designer clothes.
We can only hope the HSE has learnt its lesson now and in future will improve its checks and balances to ensure theft is identified as soon as it starts. Im not hearing anything in the HSEs answers to the PAC acknowledging they allowed this mess to happen and if they dont accept responsibity they wont introduce measures to prevent this happening again.0 -
2RockMountain wrote: »I'm not a spokesperson for the HSE, so perhaps you'd like to ask them.
LOL, where did I say that you were??
Anyway...
In your opinion, as someone who seems to have a good grasp of the legalitys of this case, is what I suggested something that the HSE could have legally done had they chosen to?0 -
The HSE did report the matter to the Gardai, and neither you nor I know what they Gardai did in response. Maybe they invited Kelly in for questioning, and maybe they didn't. They generally focus on doing the right thing to make sure a conviction will stick rather than worrying (as you seem to want them to worry) about public announcements.The Gardai could have invited Kelly in for questioning if the credit card bills and the plundered bank account details were forwarded to the fraud squad.
The HSE have legal advice to indicate that the best way to publish internal audit reports is to release them under FOI. Their legal advice is that publishing internal audit reports puts them at risk of legal action, and would require them to go through even longer, more time-consuming rounds of verification and checking before publishing.The HSE could have made an announcement saying they were referring console to the charity regulator toothless though that office is.That would have been enough to stop further donations.
So if you want the outcomes of internal audit reports to come into the public domain, those reports will take much longer to do. THerefore, either fewer reports will get done (and fewer organisations will be audited) or the HSE will need to get extra resources to audit the same level of organisations.
The HSE is not a regulator - it is a funder.
And now the public knows, and the HSE had reported the matter to the Gardai.The public had a right to know the keys had spent 500,000 euros in three years,this isnt even the total amount,they could have spent the same amount in cash.
Pieta House didn't do phone counselling services. That's why they weren't asked to take over this service.Pieta could have taken over,the services cant have been that extensive if Paul kelly was too stingy to pay wages.The phone lines had been cut to two so even if you were in crisis you couldnt get through to console anyway.
Condole couldnt survive without hse funding so to all intents and purposes the charity was being run by console for the HSE.
Again how does this amount of money disappear into a black hole.Why didnt anybody ask what was happening to the HSE money,is this lack of governance the main reason why our health service is so dire and beyond reform.
Console got about 40% of its funding from HSE. It was not 'being run for the HSE' or a HSE charity or any other term you choose to come up with in order to put the HSE on the hook for something they had no legal power to do.0 -
We can only hope the HSE has learnt its lesson now and in future will improve its checks and balances to ensure theft is identified as soon as it starts. Im not hearing anything in the HSEs answers to the PAC acknowledging they allowed this mess to happen and if they dont accept responsibity they wont introduce measures to prevent this happening again.
The HSE is not a charity regulator, and will not be a charity regulator in the future. If you are suggesting that it now needs to have direct funding control over the 1,700 voluntary agencies that it funds, which operate over 2,600 separate funding arrangements to a value of approximately €3.3 billion, then you will need to double the size of the HSE administration team. Be careful what you wish for.Kidchameleon wrote: »LOL, where did I say that you were??
Anyway...
In your opinion, as someone who seems to have a good grasp of the legalitys of this case, is what I suggested something that the HSE could have legally done had they chosen to?
Pieta House didn't do phone line counselling service. It wasn't something they were geared up to do.0 -
Console hasnt done much phoneline counselling over the last couple of years,Kelly cut the lines from six to two ,he probably told the HSE console couldnt afford to pay the bills and no one asked why.
There are thirty people employed in the HSE to oversee charity spending!!!!!!
The Government should move now to dismantle most of the charities in existence now,we need at most ten suicide charities not two hundred.We can get rid of the charities dealing with homeless housing too and spend the money saved on bricks and mortar.
There will be no resistance from the public at all,we have seen and heard enough now.0 -
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The Government should move now to dismantle most of the charities in existence now,we need at most ten suicide charities not two hundred.We can get rid of the charities dealing with homeless housing too and spend the money saved on bricks and mortar.
There will be no resistance from the public at all,we have seen and heard enough now.
Tbf, I think they can only do that if they can plan for certain services to continue, e.g crisis support, unless the HSE is prepared to take that on itself. Of course, if there's poor practice then the charity should be wound down.
There does seem to be duplication and seemingly an oversupply of charities in relation to suicide. As I said before, part of the problem can be the setting up of local groups following a tragedy. There can then be expectation that the HSE funds these rather than joined up thinking of saying 'there's already a group in a parish 30km down the road, let's co-operate'.
The long term plan has to be for the HSE to provide proper counselling and mental health services. For now, I think a handful of charities are filling the gaps with a range of options - 24/7 phone support, a drop in service, 1:1 counselling, including support for families. Whilst acknowledging that not everyone likes phonelines, there really is no need to have a plethora of groups competing for the same pot of funding.Moderator: Television, Psychology and Dublin County North.
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Console hasnt done much phoneline counselling over the last couple of years,Kelly cut the lines from six to two ,he probably told the HSE console couldnt afford to pay the bills and no one asked why.
There are thirty people employed in the HSE to oversee charity spending!!!!!!
The Government should move now to dismantle most of the charities in existence now,we need at most ten suicide charities not two hundred.We can get rid of the charities dealing with homeless housing too and spend the money saved on bricks and mortar.
There will be no resistance from the public at all,we have seen and heard enough now.
In fairness Mary, let's not go building public policy on what Kelly 'probably' said to the HSE in your imaginary world. Let's just stick to the facts.
Yes, there are 30 people in the HSE governance unit, covering 1,700 voluntary agencies that it funds, which operate over 2,600 separate funding arrangements to a value of approximately €3.3 billion. So that's about 1 person-day for each funding arrangement/contract - so please explain how you expect the HSE to prevent this happening again when next year, they will be able to put one man-day into supervising (for example) Pieta House, or any similar agency?
And let's not go building public policy on you speaking for the general public. You don't speak for me, and you don't have a mandate to speak for anyone else. To suggest that charities should be dismantled because of a few bad apples is a gross over-reaction. But feel free to explain how you plan to cover the additional costs of bringing all those services in-house to the HSE, where the staff providing those services will now have HSE pay rates and HSE pensions?0 -
2RockMountain wrote: »Pieta House didn't do phone line counselling service. It wasn't something they were geared up to do.
Ok so one of the many charity's that DO have a phone counseling service? Could the HSE have diverted funds to one of those? Would it have been illegal for them to do so?0 -
Kidchameleon wrote: »Ok so one of the many charity's that DO have a phone counseling service? Could the HSE have diverted funds to one of those? Would it have been illegal for them to do so?
Why focus on the legality or otherwise? Was there any other organisation out there that was competent to provide phone counselling service to families of people who have died by suicide?0 -
Phone counselling with their two phone lines?0
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Paul Kelly got people to pay him three thousand euros for the cert.I think they were guaranteed work in console if they bought the cert.They had to wait to be paid most of the time though,this was because funds were low!!!!
Wouldnt you think more than one person would have to approve the credit card bills.Kelly must have had them sent to his own address.
Where was Consoles auditor while all this was going on.0 -
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You are terrible but that made me laugh.
Im not sure I would want to get counselling from anyone who would part with three grand to buy a qualification.
None of the work submitted was ever corrected or handed back.
These gullible people probably ended up counselling in consle and now they need counselling themselves.0 -
2RockMountain wrote: »Why focus on the legality or otherwise? Was there any other organisation out there that was competent to provide phone counselling service to families of people who have died by suicide?
A ton of them, but you know that. You seem to have backed yourself into a corner ha!0 -
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Kidchameleon wrote: »A ton of them, but you know that. You seem to have backed yourself into a corner ha!
Could you identify 2 or 3 of this 'ton' of organisations please?0
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