Peter McVerry Trust has 'financial issues'.

”Trust”

…..but not anymore

Charities regulator not coming off well this evening

Is anyone or anything in this country honest anymore, or where they ever!??

What a basket case of a country we have.

So, 11,500 charities in Ireland - I imagine many get their donations via bookface and social media because I certainly don’t know the name of 11,500 Irish charities- the regulator itself admits it has piss poor processes for veting new requests for charity status in the past and considering 37% of charities haven’t submitted financial reports to the charities regulator as they’re required to do but only a handful have been prosecuted for this-, it’s simple to deduct that 1000s of charities out there who have the guise of being legitimate are simply there to swindle the public and line the pockets of the charity founder -

It’s like a random begging letter is probably more likely to be a legitimate request for money, than an Irish registered charity (yes slight exaggeration, but not by much)

He's 80 years old so presumably in receipt of a Contributory Pension and perhaps some assistance from his order, Jesuits Ireland.

Charities and Regulator came out very poorly there. Amazing how all these charities start out with great intentions, but then become so corrupt as time goes by….

Is Heather Humphreys the main government top brass over "charities"

A cousin of my grandfather was an only child and had been estranged from all of the extended family for a long time. He passed away with no immediate family but efforts to reach extended family were successful. Anyway there was another first cousin who was a nun and the glee of this woman when she thought she was bringing an inheritance into the order was incredible. He had come from a much better off side of the family but had never really worked and lived a fairly frugal life on whatever he'd inherited. It must have been some shock to the nun to find out there was **** all left in the end. The rest of the family were relieved to find out he'd reached a good age in relative contentment but she was a piece of work.

There is either a coldness that are in people to become nuns or it is part of the initiation and conditioning. Ever wonder why Tusla and Nuns do the same work? The same people with different uniforms.

These people run charities, its not just the money, its the power over another human beings life.

Myself and wife were desperately in need of accomodation. No sign of one coming, no criminal records, one on disabilty one on minimum wage. Simon community were all talk and useless.

All this money is lost on wages, advertising, corporate entertainment (T&A account) and feck all to show for it.

personally I think all charities start off with the best of intentions, they then become these big organisations without the controls of companies.

someone takes advantage and it comes ceashing down, but basically it's regulatory failure and the fact that gov can't be bothered providing services.

I see Simon have closed in donegal and there's no council service to even contact.

if the public service can't be bothered, get rid of the staff and subcontract whatever services and then you can have metrics and service level agreements.

I think having the volume of charities that exist in Ireland at present masks the lack of work the government or doing- and yes, many of the people in these charities don’t have the requisite skills or knowledge to run them compliantly and effectively .

We’ve heard too many stories now about embezzlement bad accounting failure to keep records etc to know that there’s something rotten going on out there.

Personal appeals on go fund me from people you know or relatives of people you know, seem to be where people are directing their donations these days- I’m the last week I got 3 requests- a family members friend who she’s known since childhood, and two women’s marathons fund raisers for two people with cancer - I gave to all 3. This is money charities used to get so I’d say takings are down all round as the public aren’t as gullible as they once were and some of the big charity names are not what they once were from a credibility and trust perspective

I agree.

The meagre finances of an elderly priest are neither here nor there in the context of what we are discussing.

I think there's a lot of misunderstanding about what a charity is in this thread. In reality it's a tax / revenue status that allows you to avoid certain taxes. To get charitable status you need to show that you are engaged in a charitable cause. The vast majority of charities are not volunteer driven, raising money for a good cause type of organisation, most charities are more professional than that.

I sit on the Board of a charity that has no donors, does not use volunteers, does not provide a 'caring' service to people or animals, and which is run and operated by well paid professionals. Because however it is engaged in one of the ten areas of charity and does not have shareholders or members to whom it has to provide a dividend to (i.e. is a not for profit) it has charitable status. There are lots of companies that operate like that. I would also note that Charity trustees cannot be paid for sitting on the Board of a Charity, although if they are Executive Directors they will be getting a salary.

In my role on that Board I have had dealings with the Charities Regulator and they are exactly as the Prime Time programme showed them to be.