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I didn't realise that there was so much money flowing through the Trust. In around €50m in 2022 alone.
Threadbans
Boggles
AndrewJRenko
There were no controls in place during the early days, it was self assessed.
I'm saying it doesn't look like they met the required criteria, and questions should be asked of the CFO as to why they claimed debt warehousing when their income increased.
From memory companies who received state funding were not allowed to claim EWSS or TWSS. So they did not qualify and certainly did not qualify with a 10 million increase in income.
They publish their audited accounts online. Revenue have engaged with them since last year and structured a repayment schedule.
What you are suggesting is the CFO committed fraud.
Good luck with that.
As far as I recall you didn't have to provide anything to Revenue at the time that proved your reduction in income, you just claimed the warehousing. Like anything with Revenue, it can be reviewed after the fact.
Blanch put up the Revenue rules and also the year on year income , so its fairly obvious PMVT were in breach of this. That would have required sign off at a senior level, probably the CFO. And now there are serious financial issues in the organisation.
I wonder if this CFO knows what his salary is.
I imagine Revenue would know better, no?
€44m spent in 2020, up from €38m in 2019. Wait til some journalists start picking apart where the money went, guarantee there will be some questionable expenses in there.
As Blanch pointed out, they didn't meet the criteria to warehouse their PAYE liability. Revenue could rightly call the debt tomorrow, and they won't be able to pay.
No. They warehoused their paye tax liability as did 10s of 1000s of businesses.
As part of exiting the warehousing process they engaged with Revenue in a payment plan. Revenue hardly expected or asked for a cliff edge repayment date. The deadline for repayments have been pushed out again to the middle of next year.
There is no problem with Revenue at the moment.
These are the 2020 Financial Statements
Income went from €46.7m in 2019 to €56.4m in 2020, an increase of over 20%.
Under the Revenue rules for warehousing your tax payments, you must have expected your 2020 income to be 25% less than your 2019 income. There are serious questions to be asked therefore as to how PMVT were allowed avail of this warehousing.
Not a chance of that happening, anyway Revenue have warehoused the debt. It is not clear how the debt came about. Did they claim Covid employer relief (EWSS and TWSS) when not entitled to?
The inherent problem with state funding is it becomes a bit like Brewster's Millions. In order to qualify for the same funding the following year, or even better more, then you have to blow the lot before the year is out. In essence it becomes the opposite of what a company should be trying to achieve, operating at a loss=good, operating at a profit=bad.
If there was no state funding you can guarantee these companies would be vastly more efficient.
Why would Revenue petition to wind them up? That would be dangerously stupid.
They are meeting their tax obligations set out by revenue.
Thornton Hall
They shouldn't. Let Revenue petition the courts to wind them up, government seize the assets.
Absolutely, and this charity in particular has been set above all others. Hopefully it means we won't have to listen to them anymore.
Why should the government bail one charity out only?
If the issue is tax due to Revenue, then it's just the government paying itself if they bail these guys out.
This will be like RTE, frivolous expenses will be exposed, no lessons will be learned.
So where should the drug users be (ware)housed? I don't want them causing trouble in the industrial estate I work in, or my apartment complex, of my estate. So??..
These charities should not be housing addicts in apparent complexes. I’m sorry they have decided to destroy their lives but other apartment residents should not have to deal with junkies and the problems they bring with them.
There are over 10k registered charities in Ireland.
That's about 1 charity for every 500 people in this Country.
At an average build cost of €200k, you could build nearly 700 houses a year on the funding for those four. You could get build costs down to €200k by building on state owned land, a simple finish, i.e. no kitchen fitted, only main bathroom fitted, electrical fittings to be done by homeowner etc. (which is the way houses are finished in other countries).
Any time I've ever questioned homeless charities including this one I've been made to feel a monster by others who think these charities are above suspicion.
There are way too many of them in this country.
Why does the government give so much to this trust? Over the past few years how much housing could have been built with that money.
I realise this issue seems to be tax due to revenue but I'd say open the Pandora's Box and let the rot out.
Surely the onus is on all these homeless charities NOT to solve the crisis?
If there was very few homeless people, there would be no need for them?
Nah.
The government have farmed out responsibility on services it should be providing.
It's centre right economics, sell everything that is and isn't nailed down and then sell the nails.
The "industry" was created by a dereliction of successive governance by design.
Well, this is kind of the problem I have. The government is democratically elected and provides the services that its mandate allows it to. So if homeless services required, the government pays for it and provides it directly. This ensures that a whole poverty industry doesn't arise around this. Look at Peter McVerry charity. Now with 500 people involved, it doesn't want the homeless issue solved. More homeless people means more publicity for the Trust, more money for the Trust, and a bigger salary for the CEO. Solve the homeless issue and the golden goose is dead and the gravy train gets parked.
Charities can step into the gap and fund services the government doesn't want to or isn't mandated to. For example, I would like to see the churches take over religious education and the government get out of funding it. Churches are charities and can raise money from their members to pay for the education. That is an example of a charity funding a gap that the government shouldn't be doing.
Similarly, if there are extraordinary things, like funding trips to Lourdes for old people, or Disneyland for sick young people, those are things that the taxpayer shouldn't be involved in, but charities can do. Or, if you want to provide better or different homeless meals than those supplied by the government, a charity can step in.
All of that means that charities shouldn't be funded by government.
In 2021 the Peter McVerry Trust had income of €53m, Focus Ireland's income was €41m, the Simon Community €26m, DePaul Ireland €19m........That's €139m between these 4 charities alone. There are also 500 Approved Housing Bodies in Ireland with their own substantial incomes. In 2021 Cluid for example had an income of €76m.
I have no issues with their staff being paid well, but this is a massive industry that is self perpetuating. With the sums of money involved here, especially taxpayers money, there needs to be proper oversight.
I used to be a charity giver especially to Pieta whom I had good reason to support.
i was very angry when I discovered that a good portion of my donations were going to pay the almost 150,000 salary of the CEO
especially when the Organization is so strapped for cash.I will not longer donate to any charity which has such huge salaries for their staff.
shame on them.
500 'employees' in the organisation, sweet jaysus, I thought it involved about 30 people.
“During that time, our fundraising events were cancelled, our income dropped substantially, so now we’re having to pay back the back taxes, along with our monthly tax liability for PAYE and PRSI for over 500 employees, so that’s challenging.
I never said that if charities were gone that the problems would disappear too...
In a an ideal society we would have adequately funded services to deal with people's housing, mental health and addiction needs if they need help.
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