Vol. 563 No. 5
93 Mr. O'Shea asked the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs if his Department has completed its consideration of the consultant's examination of aspects of the charities legislation; his proposals for the prom ised public consultation process; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [8435/03]
My Department is now concluding its consideration of the consultant's charity law review. The next step is to identify the key issues in relation to an appropriate regulatory framework, consistent with the commitment in An Agreed Programme for Government to enact a reform of the law that would ensure accountability and protect against abuse of charitable status and fraud.
The intention is to include the key issues in a reader-friendly consultation paper. The target for preparation of the paper is this summer. As the reference document for the public consultation process, it will be publicly available and will also be posted on my Department's website.
Does the Minister of State consider it a cause for concern that when the list of legalisation was published by the Government the charities Bill was listed as being expected in 2003, but subsequently it has been listed as being expected in 2005? He indicated that he expected the consultation process to start by the summer. Is the process on target for that timeframe? Why has an extra two years been added to the period for the preparation of the legislation?
On the last occasion a reply was given to a question on this matter, it was said that the legislation might be published in 2005. We have tried to fast-track that process. We have set an ambitious target in trying to have the legislation published by the end of 2004. There is no room in that timeframe for any margin of error. We have outlined a programme. We will publish the consultation paper this summer. We hope to conclude the process of consultation by the autumn, to prepare a general scheme of the Bill and submit it to Government for approval for drafting by early next year and to publish the draft Bill by the end of 2004. That is a tight timetable. It is an improvement on the one we outlined previously. We have prioritised this Bill within the Department and we hope to work to that timetable.
I welcome the fact that the projected date for publication of the legislation seems to be drawing nearer. In terms of the consultation process, did any issues arise that were not foreseen initially which could cause major problems in the publication or preparation of the legislation? The report of the consultation process should be made available to the public and to the Members of this House. It would help the consultation process if we knew what was in the consultation document at this stage. It is important that there is a specially prepared consultation document for the public, but why can we not have sight of the advice the Minister of State received from the consultants?
The document will be made public in early summer.
I am not talking about the document from the consultants, but the consultancy document that will arise from that, the document that the Minister of State will prepare.
Will the Deputy clarify that? Is he referring to the consultants' document we received?
Yes, why can that not be published?
If the Deputy is interested in having sight of it, I do not know if there is any difficulty in that regard. I am not aware of whether it has been published already. What would be the value of that? There have been at least two previous examinations of this issue by the Oireachtas. Many of the main topics that will arise are well known. Deputy Burton, the Deputy's party colleague, prepared a report on this issue a few years ago. Many of the issues would be well known. It is a case of grasping them and proceeding to something about them. We hope to publish the consultation document, to engage in the consultation process over the summer and to have it wrapped up by the autumn. If there are any documents the Deputy would like to see, I do not believe there is a difficulty in that regard.
Some consultants reports are legalistic. I do not know if publishing many of them would add to or confuse the position. We want to publish a reader friendly consultation document which we hope will allow the public to zone in on this issue. We are not hiding any other documents, but we would like the consultation document to be the summary of the various reports we have received and the exercises on this issue carried out in the Department. We hope that document will focus on previous reviews and the consultants' report and that it will be reader friendly. That is what we are targeting.
I fully accept the need to have a reader friendly document. The consultants examined the practice in other jurisdictions. It would help the process if that documentation was made public as early as possible and the Minister of State would get a constructive input into the process from Members on this side of the House. The sooner we have the information, the sooner we can start coming up with ideas which we can feed into the consultancy process.
Perhaps we could put it in the Oireachtas Library for the benefit of Members. I will look into that and report back to the Deputy.
