Irish autism action

harr

Not sure if right forum ,mods move if needed...

I see a lot of parents asking a lot of questions regarding this charities funding and how the money raised is spent ...not one person has come forward to say they have received any kind of Service from them... Hundreds of thousands are raised for this charity each year,it's a very high profile organisation ..It would make you think who gets what.
Link here
https://www.facebook.com/Irishautism/

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

I'm not sure what your point is but I know that they have helped with detection diagnosis, home support, transition planning, and advice to families.

Are you suggesting something is amiss, because I know of families who have received help from them.


Hardly a consumer Issue though.

harr

Calliope Inexpensive Children wrote: »

I'm not sure what your point is but I know that they have helped with detection diagnosis, home support, transition planning, and advice to families.

Are you suggesting something is amiss, because I know of families who have received help from them.


Hardly a consumer Issue though.

Well going by the amount of comments on the Facebook page it would seem the services they provide are very limited with hundreds of comments from familys asking what exactly they provide...and by there own addmission they do not provide any of the services you mentioned above. I have looked for help from them in past and have fundraised for them but it seems they provide little to no services ...and they have posted they are currently only assisting two familys.
As for it noting being a consumer issue I have asked mods to move if needed...

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

harr wrote: »

Well going by the amount of comments on the Facebook page it would seem the services they provide are very limited with hundreds of comments from familys asking what exactly they provide...and by there own addmission they do not provide any of the services you mentioned above. I have looked for help from them in past and have fundraised for them but it seems they provide little to no services ...and they have posted they are currently only assisting two familys.
As for it noting being a consumer issue I have asked mods to move if needed...

I'm not going to get dragged into an argument here but I personally know a few families that were assisted by them in obtaining diagnosis and counselling.

syklops

harr wrote: »

Well going by the amount of comments on the Facebook page it would seem the services they provide are very limited with hundreds of comments from familys asking what exactly they provide...and by there own addmission they do not provide any of the services you mentioned above. I have looked for help from them in past and have fundraised for them but it seems they provide little to no services ...and they have posted they are currently only assisting two familys.
As for it noting being a consumer issue I have asked mods to move if needed...

Facebook comments really arent the place to get any kind of fact on a subject. Why dont you ring them up and ask them what services they provide?

Speedwell

Hey, I'm autistic and I heard there was a thread about some action?

MOD NOTE: Posters, please do not report this post further.

harr

syklops wrote: »

Facebook comments really arent the place to get any kind of fact on a subject. Why dont you ring them up and ask them what services they provide?

We have a family member with autism and have fundraised for IAA thinking money was going into a good service , rang a few months ago to see what services they provide and was told they no longer provide the kind of therapy we wanted, fair enough but now it seems they provide very little services to anybody looking for help...so naturally people are wondering what the 8 million + they have raised in the last number of years has been used for..

MarkR

I think my son's school receives some funding from them. I also got an id for him from them, which I was able to use in disneyland paris.

harr

MarkR wrote: »

I think my son's school receives some funding from them. I also got an id for him from them, which I was able to use in disneyland paris.

They don't give you the ID you pay them €50 for it....plus they don't need any form diagnosis to get the ID you send off 50 quid and it's sent out no questions asked...I know our local school got one hours training back in 2011 .

hairyslug

Can't comment on where the money is going but when our boy was diagnosed they were of no help, no emails replied and eventually phone calls that pointed is in the direction of other support services, nothing that they could offer themselves.

bigpink

The next charity scandal?

MarkR

harr wrote: »

They don't give you the ID you pay them €50 for it....plus they don't need any form diagnosis to get the ID you send off 50 quid and it's sent out no questions asked...I know our local school got one hours training back in 2011 .

I never said it was given to me. Just that I got one. I don't think it was 50 either, but it's been a while. I'm not sure this is a consumer issue really to be honest.

I do know my sons school did get some money, but they had to really really really push for it. And that was some time ago. If you're unhappy with transparency, don't donate I suppose.

Lux23

If you have concerns, write to them and request their financial accounts. I would wonder why their financial accounts are so out of date.

http://autismireland.ie/about-iaa/iaa-financial-accounts/

garhjw

Does Keith Duffy still raise funds for IAA? He did in the past

mordeith

Speedwell wrote: »

Hey, I'm autistic and I heard there was a thread about some action?

As the parent of an autistic son I must admit to finding that 50% funny and 50% calling you something that would get me a warning.

The Codemaster

I have to agree with the OP. My wife is an SNA, and these guys don't seem to do anytime! They get tonnes of funding and nobody knows where it gets spent. Question them on their Facebook page, and you'll get blocked.

How can you report a charity for an audit?

Claude Burgundy

The Codemaster wrote: »

I have to agree with the OP. My wife is an SNA, and these guys don't seem to do anytime! They get tonnes of funding and nobody knows where it gets spent. Question them on their Facebook page, and you'll get blocked.

How can you report a charity for an audit?

What funding do you speak of ?

dudara

The Codemaster wrote: »

How can you report a charity for an audit?

I would assume that you can start with the Charities Regulatory Authority

harr

garhjw wrote: »

Does Keith Duffy still raise funds for IAA? He did in the past

No left his fundraising role last year, but did help raise 8 million euro...

The Codemaster

Claude Burgundy wrote: »

What funding do you speak of ?

Constant fundraising. I can't post links (new user), but this is just 1:

"Over €108,000 has been raised for Irish Autism Action by Nestlé’s employees in Ireland since their partnership began in 2014. "

Besides Nestle, you have Keith Duffy, Dulux Paints, etc....

harr

Claude Burgundy wrote: »

What funding do you speak of ?

They were getting government funding up to a number of years ago ...when they claimed to be doing certain therapy in conjunction with the HSE...the therapy which so may parents went looking for but could not get..or for that matter make contact with IAA to enquire about such therapy ...god knows I did try to make contact many a time ...got through to the so called help line once and was directed to another HSE service provider and was told IAA do not provide therapy session like speech or OT anymore ...so all parents are asking is where have the millions of euro in fundraising money being spent and where is the current money being spent ...

The Codemaster

harr wrote: »

They were getting government funding up to a number of years ago ...when they claimed to be doing certain therapy in conjunction with the HSE...the therapy which so may parents went looking for but could not get..or for that matter make contact with IAA to enquire about such therapy ...god knows I did try to make contact many a time ...got through to the so called help line once and was directed to another HSE service provider and was told IAA do not provide therapy session like speech or OT anymore ...so all parents are asking is where have the millions of euro in fundraising money being spent and where is the current money being spent ...

Exactly - I can't see anything they actually do except maintain a terribly designed website full of grammatical & punctuation errors, delete & ban people from their facebook page, and they ignore e-mails. They certainly don't have anyone answering their phones full-time.

So where does the money go? They charge for the ID cards, so not even those are free - cards that look like they've been designed in MS word & use 4 different fonts.

brooke 2

hairyslug wrote: »

Can't comment on where the money is going but when our boy was diagnosed they were of no help, no emails replied and eventually phone calls that pointed is in the direction of other support services, nothing that they could offer themselves.

A family member has a child with autism and has received absolutely no help from IAA. I have posted elsewhere about this before. The sight of Keith Duffy spouting about all they were doing for the children always made her see red! She and some other parents are involved in a local group who had to resort to do their own fundraising. Other people to whom I have spoken here on Boards have said they may have been advised re therapists but there was no financial help whatsoever given to pay for them.
It was very frustrating to read about all the money which was raised by holding balls in fancy hotels, and golf classics in the K Club, among other things, but no account given as to where or how the supposed €8m raised at these events was spent.

hairyslug

A couple of strange things popped up at the IAA meeting, while claiming Duffy, raised 8m, the cost to raise tjat money was 7m, only a profit of 1m over about 10 years. Yet Duffy says that he did it all FOC.
They also mentioned that the HSE will only fund €20 per hour for a therapist, IAA has to stump an additional €8 to cover the hourly cost for these, with the funding they receive, they can only offer this to 2 families.

A2LUE42

brooke 2 wrote:

A family member has a child with autism and has received absolutely no help from IAA. I have posted elsewhere about this before. The sight of Keith Duffy spouting about all they were doing for the children always made her see red! She and some other parents are involved in a local group who had to resort to do their own fundraising. Other people to whom I have spoken here on Boards have said they may have been advised re therapists but there was no financial help whatsoever given to pay for them. It was very frustrating to read about all the money which was raised by holding balls in fancy hotels, and golf classics in the K Club, among other things, but no account given as to where or how the supposed €8m raised at these events was spent.

Seems they claimed it cost 7M to raise the 8M.

Story in Indo today.
Autism agency chief admits charity got €600k from State
Ex-Boyzone star Duffy taking legal advice on fundraising comments.

It is the CAB that needs to start investigating the 'charity sector' in Ireland, nevermind the charity regulater.

brooke 2

garhjw wrote: »

Does Keith Duffy still raise funds for IAA? He did in the past

Left IAA earlier this year due to 'family and work commitments'. Proceeded to establish the Keith Duffy Foundation, which organised a fundraising ball in the Powerscourt Enniskerry Hotel. I thought it was interesting that when he was with IAA he had organised similar balls over the years in the same venue, which was then known as the Ritz-Carlton.

On reading about the KD Ball, I thought at the time that IAA might have been a bit miffed at Keith as he had 'abandoned' them owing to his 'family and work commitments', yet had the time to set up his own charity and organise another Ball, the proceeds of which, of course, were going to his new charity.....Sorry, 'foundation'.

Now we hear that questions are being asked about the €8m which was reported as having been raised over the years. Iirc, the CEO remarked within the past few days that it 'cost €7m'. In response to that, I believe Keith has engaged a solicitor.

More to follow, I'm guessing.

brooke 2

A2LUE42 wrote: »

Seems they claimed it cost 7M to raise the 8M.

Story in Indo today.
Autism agency chief admits charity got €600k from State
Ex-Boyzone star Duffy taking legal advice on fundraising comments.

It is the CAB that needs to start investigating the 'charity sector' in Ireland, nevermind the charity regulater.

You're absolutely right about the need to get CAB involved in checking out these charities.
The whole area is a cess pool.

People contribute to various charities out of the goodness of their hearts, genuinely believing they are helping those in need. It is extremely disillusioning, not to mention, heartbreaking, to discover that they have been exploited by greedy psychopaths, who do not seem to give one consideration to all the damage they are causing.

VincePP

hairyslug wrote: »

A couple of strange things popped up at the IAA meeting, while claiming Duffy, raised 8m, the cost to raise tjat money was 7m, only a profit of 1m over about 10 years. Yet Duffy says that he did it all FOC.
.

The head has conveniently denied that he said this.

I wonder what the head's expenses and salary was over the past few years? and whether family members were involved in "working" on fundraiing projects and being paid handsomly for that work.

Another charity on the strike off list for many people.

Winterlong

VincePP wrote: »

Another charity on the strike off list for many people.

At this stage all faith is been lost in the charity sector. I know I am not donating anywhere at the moment except to local community causes.
I would imagine a lot of people are the same.
And this is sad as those 'good' charities that do good work with low admin costs are suffering.

MarkR

More bad news about Autism Ireland today. I certainly would be thinking twice before giving anything to them.

http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/autism-charity-in-danger-of-missing-out-on-300k-748255.html

Hundreds of thousands of euro worth of funding has been withheld from the country's largest Autism charity.
Autism Action Ireland revealed earlier this week that it had not written a budget for this year.

hairyslug

Edit: incorrect info posted

A2LUE42

That % for charitable spend can be easily manipulated.

An example was a charity in NI was found to be spending (have to make these figures up as cant remember the actual numbers involved) BBC did a primetime type special on it at the time.

So the scam went something like this.
I run a Charity and spend 100K from monies received.
30K for Salary and 20K for misc fees such as phones, taxis, media launches, events and rent for premises etc, leaving 50K spent on the charitable part.

Seems pretty good..

Until you dig deeper and find that the 10K in rent is for a building I personally own and the charity is paying a very high rate for what they are renting.

then you go a step further..

The charity is providing computers for the underprivileged/deprived.
BUT the charity is buying 40K of refurbished PC's from company x and giving them to the underprivileged/deprived or whoever it is they are supposed to be helping.

Company x is run by my brother in law, I am also a director of the company, and the pc's the charity is paying 40K for are a pile of donated and reworked rubbish that shouldn't be worth any more that 5K.

They then pay company x 10K to 'install' the computers, another gross over-payment.

So the entire purpose was to extract as much money as possible. The cause was almost irrelevant, but they can claim that 50% is spent on the charity

coylemj

It was well covered by Joe Duffy today, he had a pretty level-headed woman talking on the programme and reiterating the points made above - lots of money going in, families doing fund raising but very little evidence of activities which provide benefits to autistic people and/or support for their families.

Starts at 1:11:30 i.e. very near the end of the programme .....

http://www.rte.ie/radio/utils/radioplayer/rteradioweb.html#!rii=b9%5F10604391%5F53%5F05%2D08%2D2016%5F

Bottom line: Where does the money go?

harr

hairyslug wrote: »

Taken from the indo today, I've copied and pasted the below, the paper has a list of a lotnof charities, the average split between admin and charity is 20/80,

Autism Ireland

Total Income: €1.73m

State funds: €90k

Donations: €1.64m

Salaries: €973,752

CEO (Kevin Whelan): €78,973 plus pension

Where money goes: 40% admin, fundraising/ rent

60% charitable activity

Those figures seem way off to the amount of money that should be going in...large company's are pumping money into Irish autism action ....wooddies and nestle to name just two plus thousands from national pj day the schools run ... Hundreds of high-profile events all over the country every week...what they should be providing is a break down of all money spent in a lot more detail ...what is the point of a charity when no one is benefiting and why are they given state funds when they are not providing a services...

A2LUE42

harr wrote: »

Those figures seem way off to the amount of money that should be going in...large company's are pumping money into Irish autism action ....wooddies and nestle to name just two plus thousands from national pj day the schools run ... Hundreds of high-profile events all over the country every week...what they should be providing is a break down of all money spent in a lot more detail ...what is the point of a charity when no one is benefiting and why are they given state funds when they are not providing a services...

I think this is proving to be the case more often than not at the moment, hopefully it cleans up the whole charity sector.
It is horrifying to see the amounts that the HSE and other departments have been giving to so many charities to outsource facilities and supports that should be taking care of people, but such a large % is being 'misappropriated', to put it mildly.

MarkR

More public backlash.

http://www.breakingnews.ie/showbiz/keith-duffy-hits-out-at-irish-autism-action-charity-748371.html

Smondie

MarkR wrote: »

More public backlash.

http://www.breakingnews.ie/showbiz/keith-duffy-hits-out-at-irish-autism-action-charity-748371.html

Why did it take Keith 6 months to draw attention to the real issue he left? In that time money was being raised. He put a lot of effort in to the charity and should have been thanked, but if he knew what was going on, he had a responsibility to blow the whistle.

A major problem with all these charities is there are too many doing the same thing. Who are this "Irish autism mammies" crowd? they don't appear to have much of a web presence.

The hse should be ashamed of themselves for outsourcing everything with miminal checks on who they are giving it to.

harr

Smondie wrote: »

Why did it take Keith 6 months to draw attention to the real issue he left? In that time money was being raised. He put a lot of effort in to the charity and should have been thanked, but if he knew what was going on, he had a responsibility to blow the whistle.

A major problem with all these charities is there are too many doing the same thing. Who are this "Irish autism mammies" crowd? they don't appear to have much of a web presence.

The hse should be ashamed of themselves for outsourcing everything with miminal checks on who they are giving it to.

Irish autism mammies is a private support group on Facebook ,just a place mothers can chat between themselves and give support or advise based on each individual experience ....it's the only place a lot of parents can get advice and invaluable to parents who are only after getting diagnoses..

Smondie

harr wrote: »

Smondie wrote: »

Why did it take Keith 6 months to draw attention to the real issue he left? In that time money was being raised. He put a lot of effort in to the charity and should have been thanked, but if he knew what was going on, he had a responsibility to blow the whistle.

A major problem with all these charities is there are too many doing the same thing. Who are this "Irish autism mammies" crowd? they don't appear to have much of a web presence.

The hse should be ashamed of themselves for outsourcing everything with miminal checks on who they are giving it to.

Irish autism mammies is a private support group on Facebook ,just a place mothers can chat between themselves and give support or advise based on each individual experience ....it's the only place a lot of parents can get advice and invaluable to parents who are only after getting diagnoses..

Thanks for the explanation. I couldn't find much about them or if they receive funding. But a support group on fb is all good!

coylemj

harr wrote: »

Irish autism mammies is a private support group on Facebook ,just a place mothers can chat between themselves and give support or advise based on each individual experience ....it's the only place a lot of parents can get advice and invaluable to parents who are only after getting diagnoses..

+1 apparently the official Irish Autism Action (IAA) facebook page blocks anyone who criticises them or who asks an awkward question so it's no surprise that the mammies set up their own FB page.

Keith Duffy appears to have been badly treated by the IAA, he said he had 'no relationship' with any member of the committee and when he stood down after 14 years as their main fund raiser, they didn't so much as write him a 'thank you' letter or send his wife a bunch of flowers. No wonder he felt taken for granted.

On the RTE radio 1 p.m. news today (Fri. Aug 5th), Richard Crowley said that they made several efforts to contact the IAA CEO Brian Murnane but he didn't respond. The media can clearly smell blood here, this story will not have a happy ending.

2RockMountain

harr wrote: »

Those figures seem way off to the amount of money that should be going in...large company's are pumping money into Irish autism action ....wooddies and nestle to name just two plus thousands from national pj day the schools run ... Hundreds of high-profile events all over the country every week...what they should be providing is a break down of all money spent in a lot more detail ...what is the point of a charity when no one is benefiting and why are they given state funds when they are not providing a services...

The figures quoted are for Autism Ireland, and you're talking about Irish Autism Action - two separate organisations.

The Codemaster

Well, it's all coming out now! Just as many had suspected.

http://www.thejournal.ie/pyjama-day-funds-withheld-from-irish-autism-action-2912014-Aug2016/

Smondie

The Codemaster wrote: »

Well, it's all coming out now! Just as many had suspected.

http://www.thejournal.ie/pyjama-day-funds-withheld-from-irish-autism-action-2912014-Aug2016/

The saddest thing is these charities are using preschool children to get thier grubby hands on a few Bob. That should be stopped all together. A captive audience for donations, none of them have any shame by the looks of things.

Flippyfloppy

In fairness the three main points keep getting regurgitated with different headlines throughout the day :

- Early childhood Ireland are withholding the money raised

- Keith Duffy is getting legal advice and wasnt appreciated for his work there

- the Ceo claimed Keith Duffy cost €7 million to raise €8 million

It's terrible and all but the way the online news outlets keep churning out the exact same stories under different headings is about naff

Keane2baMused

I've been waiting for this to happen. I stopped donating to IAA ages ago when I figured something wasnt right.

Absolutely disgusts me that these people's pockets are lined out of the kindness of others.

dudara

Moved to Health Sciences, as this is not really a Consumer Issue. Please note that the Health Sciences charter now applied

dudara

coylemj

Keane2baMused wrote: »

I've been waiting for this to happen. I stopped donating to IAA ages ago when I figured something wasnt right.

Absolutely disgusts me that these people's pockets are lined out of the kindness of others.

Let's be careful here, there has been no allegations of false accounting, fake directors, mega salaries and an entire family running riot with company credit cards as was exposed in relation to the people running Console.

This could simply be gross incompetence and/or lack of proper controls. The people running the autism charity are not necessarily lining their pockets and no report in the media so far has made even a vague suggestion that that is the case.

gctest50

2RockMountain wrote: »

The figures quoted are for Autism Ireland, and you're talking about Irish Autism Action - two separate organisations.

where's the other ones website ?

Irish Autism Action - http://autismireland.ie/

Autism Ireland - ???

2RockMountain

gctest50 wrote: »

where's the other ones website ?

Irish Autism Action - http://autismireland.ie/

Autism Ireland - ???

Sorry, the reference to Kevin Whelan as CEO put me off, as I knew he wasn't the CEO of Irish Autism Action. So in fact, they were talking about the one organisation - Irish Autism Action - who use AutismIreland.ie as their website.

harr

gctest50 wrote: »

where's the other ones website ?

Irish Autism Action - http://autismireland.ie/

Autism Ireland - ???

That's Irish autism action website....I did think they used a different web address but that is definitely IAA,s website ...still claiming they get no government funding on that even though it was proved different..

harr

2RockMountain wrote: »

Sorry, the reference to Kevin Whelan as CEO put me off, as I knew he wasn't the CEO of Irish Autism Action. So in fact, they were talking about the one organisation - Irish Autism Action - who use AutismIreland.ie as their website.

Looks like that, Kevin whelan
stepped down earlier this year , which a lot of members were not told about and nobody really knows why....they only made that announcement on the Facebook page last week even though he was gone a few months at stage ..
The whole organisation looks like one big mess...