The Irish public has a noble record regarding their support of a diverse range of worthy causes. The Christian tradition of the country and the basic decency of the people have gained us respect across the globe. Against this background it is deeply worrying that grave questions of accountability in relation to charitable bodies have arisen. The many genuine and committed individuals involved in such concerns rely on public trust and esteem. Of primary importance is the issue of control of charitable endeavours. This entails that public satisfaction with the existing system of permits and licences as a means by which to control the pursuits of charities is reduced. Senators leaving this House and walking down any street in the main shopping areas of this city will see unsealed and often insubstantial collection receptacles in use. Members of the public face an assortment of buckets, cans and containers. Those contributions are genuinely concerned regarding the safety of cash once donated. It is not unreasonable to contend that a preferable situation would be one in which sealed containers only would be authorised. Once the collection is completed these containers would be returned to the appropriate charity. Given existing unease the number of permits issued may have to be reviewed. In the weeks leading to Christmas people find a succession of different groups soliciting funds in the streets. With doubts as to the bona fides of certain charities it is possible that reputable organisations are losing funds to somewhat dubious ones. At the administrative level the absence of concentration in control worries many observers. Currently a number of Departments have an interest in charity dealings. These include Finance, Foreign Affairs, Health, Social Welfare and Justice. Knowing the volume of work undertaken by the Departments the range of overseeing authority hardly adds efficiency.
Registered Irish Charities: Motion (Resumed).
The Senator may take another minute.
A number of possible remedies have been suggested. It has been contended that the appropriate level of accountability may require a charities administration. This body would require powers to scrutinise and monitor charitable activity. Even if such an effective administration were possible, and British experience gives us cause for doubt, any proposal to increase public service numbers will not be popular in Government circles in times of financial retrenchment. Alternatively the larger charities may not welcome the notion that a percentage of the total donated may have to be set aside to fund such a monitoring body.
I make these observations to illustrate the obstacles which are strewn in the path to a resolution of these difficulties. We cannot permit the continuation of a situation in which public confidence, the lifeblood of charities, remains contaminated by doubts and suspicion. As a first step to allay public concern I urge the Minister to institute a full investigation of this question.
I welcome the opportunity provided by the Senators who have put down this motion to bring into focus the problems existing in relation to charities. I share the concern that is referred to in the motion and would go further. I am totally dissatisfied with the position we find ourselves in and have been giving it a great deal of attention. Perhaps I should set out what, to my mind, is wrong with our situation.
First of all, there is quite a widespread diffusion of responsibility for the whole area of collection and disposal of moneys provided for charitable purposes. As far as the responsibility of the Minister for Justice is concerned fund raising is governed by two Acts. First, the Street and House to House Collections Act, 1962 which provides for the issue of Garda permits to take up collections in specified areas. Applicants for such permits are not required to be a charity or to represent a charity. Secondly, there is the Gaming and Lotteries Act, 1956, sections 27 and 28 of which provide for the issue of garda permits and court licences respectively to hold lotteries. Only lotteries held under court licence — section 28 — are required to be for charitable or philanthropic purposes.
I also have responsibility for the Charities Acts, 1961 and 1973 which provide for the jurisdiction and powers of the Commisisoners of Charitable Donations and Bequests in relation to charitable trusts. However, it must be said at the outset that these powers are quite limited and do not extend to registration of charities and control of their operations. Other Ministers whose Departments have functions in relation to charities are the Minister for Health — some health related charities are grant-aided by the Department of Health — the Minister for Finance and the Department of Finance who are responsible for tax exemption legislation for charities; the Minister for Foreign Affairs — the Department of Foreign Affairs would have an interest in charities providing aid to the Third World; the Minister for Social Welfare because the Department of Social Welfare has responsibility for interaction with charities such as the Society of St. Vincent de Paul.
Whether or not this diffusion of responsibility is a causative factor in the present unsatisfactory situation may be arguable. What is clear, however, is that there is a widespread public perception of the defects in our present situation. Among these defects identified in an RTE television programme last year were the following:
Fund raisers get an excessive proportion of the amount they collect, which is very often 33 per cent.
Fund raising is often done in open boxes so that there is no adequate control to ensure that the total amount collected is surrendered to the organisers of the collection.
Professional fund raisers are often employed by charities to organise lotteries and other fund raising activities and occasionally at least there is no adequate check on the amount collected by the professionals to ensure that they surrender all amounts collected, less reasonable expenses and remuneration.
Apart from that, I have had a number of approaches from persons who are involved in genuine fund raising for charitable purposes and others. They are all concerned with what they perceive to be abuses of the trust which the public places in persons and organisations approaching them for ostensibly good causes. It is as a result of their approaches that I have become convinced that something must be done.
It is easy to identify abuses and defects. It is another thing to come up with solutions which will be workable and which will not interfere unnecessarily with the legitimate freedom of citizens to go about their good works. We are, unfortunately, talking about an area of activity which is particularly sensitive in that regard. I will not go too far into the issue of freedom but I am sure that Senators will readily identify their own favourite charity which, they would argue, should not be subject to any element of State control. There is also a question of resources and some Senators have mentioned the desirability of having a system which would enable all income and disbursements, as well as expenses of collecting agencies, to be closely monitored.
The motion before the House this evening refers to full accountability. I have already mentioned that the charity commissioners in this jurisdiction do not have this responsibility and it is unknown to our law. It is a feature of the law in Britain but Senators will undoubtedly be aware of the widespread dissatisfaction expressed in that country because of the sheer inability of the body charged with the registration and control of charities to carry out those functions.
The point has been made that this failure was simply a matter of finding sufficient resources to deal with a rapidly expanding workload. It is against this background that I have been considering the whole question of charities for some time now and this I regard as the first necessary step for which the motion calls to find a better system. The next step is to bring my proposals in that regard before the Government and I am glad to be able to say that I have proposals at an advanced stage and will be bringing those proposals to the Government in the very near future. I look forward to the day when I can introduce that legislation in the Seanad so that we can have a worthwhile debate on it.
It would be wrong of me not to say that I know the Minister is capable of giving replies on issues like this and indeed he is not wanting in saying he recognises that there are areas and charities where there are problems. There are legalised charities which are doing excellent work throughout society. There is the Saint Vincent de Paul Society, and others. Societies like those, whether we like it or not, are in doubt as to whether or not something will happen in the new legislation that is being considered. It is a worry. In areas such as health if you want to get money from government you must collect pound for pound for, say, a hospital. I am involved in one area and to collect moneys there are particular persons who are involved in trading situations. They set up the scheme and get a certain amount of what is collected. I have no objection to that when you need these persons. I am not saying they are not within the law but in a local area where you want to collect moneys for a local hospital in particular, there is sympathy for that because the hospital is within that local area. These people are brought in because the administrative staff would not have the expertise to get the money in. They may have to get £100,000 in over a 12 month period or a two year period so that they can get another £100,000 from the Government of the day.
It is a very good idea and there is nothing wrong in saying that we would be putting up pound for pound but we should look at the percentage amount that is given to these legalised bodies, these fund organisations. They say: "These are the people you should be seeing in the areas; these are the people you should be waiting to". There is a fancy letter sent out to the local plants, to the local industrialists, a fancy letter to the local commercial people whether they be in service or production. That is done through these organisations but at a cost.
I know the Minister is aware of it, because he lives in an area that is not extraordinarily large and he knows that when you get the sympathy of these industrialists and commercial people in towns and cities who are totally committed to the local hospital or the local club these fund raisers can make very easy money working on a percentage. When you look at it after a month or two you would say: "If the administration had put their act together and employed one person on a part-time basis or on a 20 hour week they could have done this themselves". That is what I am afraid of.
There are people who come to my door every Saturday at 7.45 p.m. and they collect £1 for the sick poor. These people put so much in. We are in danger of saying in our legislation that these people might be in question. We must not create that situation. That is a worry to them. I have spoken to people in Cork and in the St. Vincent de Paul Society who do excellent work throughout the city and throughout the country. There must not be even a glimmer of a question about them because they know much more than any administrative officer on the welfare board. They known more about cases than anybody. Every week they provide money for people in need. Suddenly, they may be in question.
I am not saying there should not be questions asked. Indeed there must be questions asked at this time. I do not want to be quoted unduly or wrongly or illegally but even last week there was a question of a particular group that was collecting for some saint to be canonised. It is a very serious situation when such people can collect money and do not have to account to anybody and they can do it legally through legalised institutions like banks. Why is it that we cannot implement something in the Finance Bill or in other legislation to prevent these people from collecting through the banks? That is very serious.
We should not allow these organisations to tell people: "You can post money into us or you can pay it through your bank account into our bank account". That is so easy and there are so many innocent people who are very considerate. The Bob Geldof appeal proved that the Irish are the most decent and compassionate people. They give much more than the people across the water. Yet there is a problem in Britain with the legalised charities.
The legalising of people to collect money on behalf of other people or on behalf of a charity is a very, very subtle area. Consider the moneys that are being collected for the Third World. Consider the arguments that are being made and at the way it is being done. Yet, even in that area there was a problem some time ago where some people who were totally trusted could not be trusted. That is a sad situation and it puts a question mark elsewhere.
We were speaking here last week and Senator Dr. John O'Connell and I had a few words on it. Sadly, handicapped persons are being used to collect money by people from other areas. I do not want to knock the handicapped person because we can be very proud of our wheelchair associations and what they did in Seoul a few weeks ago. But we must not allow anybody to use a handicapped person to collect money and to get a percentage amount only. That is a rotten idea; that is not nice at all, even though I know people in Cork are sitting on the side of the road and selling bingo tickets and cards and they are alive and moving about, which I appreciate, but I think they should be moving about for themselves. We should not allow a blind person or a person who is in a wheelchair or a person who has polio to collect for-somebody else and get only a percentage amount. The Minister may ask: "What do you do?" I appreciate that. What do you do instead? How do you ensure that nobody is allowed to use these people? That is the miserable side of it.
Senator John O'Connell knows of a case in which a person was being used by people in mainland Europe for the sale of cards that were made somewhere else. He was getting a percentage amount and they were getting the rest. The money was not going to any charity. It was a business. How do you ensure that people in Ireland get the most out of it? There is the Third World situation. I know we are very good but we are not half good enough, I suppose. Consider the amount of money that could be given and that goes elsewhere.
When the Minister is talking to his officials he must tell them that we do not want to upset people who are very genuine. One can see members of the St. Vincent de Paul outside one's own church gate once a month. They are there hail, rain or snow. They get only pennies or 2ps but they are there. They are people who have been involved for 30 to 40 years. You will see a bank official, you will see a Revenue Commissioner, you will see the coalman, you will see the fellow who delivers the blocks, you will see the teacher and you will see the fellow you play golf with and they are all collecting a few bob. They are very discreet about their business. They never work their own area, they always work in another area. That is how discreet they are. We must never question them.
I am not a great man for collecting for charities. I will give and I will not deny that but I do not want my brother or I do not want the Minister's brother or your brother, a Chathaoirligh, or anybody else stopped. I would be sincere about that. I know the Minister would show the concern that I am trying to show. Handicapped people are used by other people in other areas for their gain and then they call it a business and no charity throughout Europe gains from it. That is not fair. That is a ruthless business and we must not allow handicapped persons to be used in any way for anybody's gain except their own. If one guy in a wheelchair is prepared to go out and the other guy in the wheelchair who cannot move gets something from it, I am all for that and we should be all for it. That is a worry. I appreciate what the Minister is saying but at the same time I would ask him, please, to show concern.
We all know that there are many very worthy causes and there are many groups who do a wonderful job of work as far as collecting money and accounting and all the rest is concerned. We all know that there is a lot of money collected for which there is not the real accountability that there should be. Every organisation collecting money should publish an annual audit and that should show what income the people concerned received. Their total expenses should be shown. Expenses can go over the top and the charities may be getting a very small proportion. The expenses may exceed the total amount given to the charities. We should know exactly how the money is dispersed; what use was made of it and where exactly it went and what service was provided with it.
I am speaking as one who has collected money. I hope in the next three weeks to launch a fund to raise £100,000 to finish an assessment unit and a holiday home which I am building in Bundoran for the mentally and physically handicapped — one of the most elaborate that there will be in the country. I have been working on it for seven years but the first stage of it is completed. We must have that kind of accountability. I am doing my scheme through the health board. The health board will take it over and run it when the job is complete and they are now involved in the process. I believe that health boards should be more involved in all these services for the handicapped. All moneys should be channelled through health boards for those purposes.
I worry when I see in my own village a car pulling up and maybe five, six, seven or eight youngsters let out. We do not know where they are from. They come into your counter and they produce an identity card. They are collecting for this charity or that charity, always some very worthy charity but we do not know where they came from, we do not know where they go to and we never hear again what happened to that money or where it went to. A very big business is being run here and many physically and mentally handicapped persons are being used. No one objects to supporting genuine causes that are properly accounted for but we do get worried. I have been told that some charities are collecting as much as £14 million without any accountability to the general public. That is a hefty amount of money. I do not know whether that is correct or not but I have heard it.
I hear all the talk about the national lottery. That is all accounted for in detail. Every penny of it is accounted for and this House or the other House can question it if they have any doubts. The only thing that can be raised in that regard is, whether the money should have gone into some other cause rather than the cause to which it went but there are no discrepancies; all the money is accounted for. This House and the other House know exactly where it went and what happened to it. Yet we have so many other organisations that are collecting money from the general public and there is no way that those people can be questioned. They are not accountable to anybody.
As Senator Cregan said, there are many very good charities that operate locally and we know that all that money is accounted for. None of us wants to injure those but those who are running their business 100 per cent correctly will have no problem in providing the balance sheet because those people already provide a balance sheet for their own AGM. It is not generally released to the public. All they would be asked to do would be to make this information available to the general public. The IDA and every other organisation that is handing out money have to have printed in the daily papers and the local papers exactly what everybody gets, where it goes, how it is used and what is done with it. That has already been done with our national lottery but it is not being done with all the other lotteries that I see around the country. I am not taking from them; I know they are doing good work. I know every organisation says it is doing a really good job and I know it is but from time to time, I think that there are many people who are using physically and mentally handicapped disabilities and cancer scares to "hype" up sympathy to collect money. Reading the Evening Press any evening you will see advertisements looking for collectors. They are paid on commission. They collect money. No receipt is issued. I had a case of someone selling cards. He said: “I will give you 40 cards for £20 and then you can sell them for £40 or £50 and double your money on them”. I showed him the door.
Professional people have come to me saying that they gave up their job to work for charities. In one case I had a man who told me he was a teacher but he sacrificed his job to work for charities. I told him that he must think I am an idiot if he thought I believed that. He must be making more money from collecting for charities than from teaching. Experiences like that make me come to the conclusion that we must have checks and balances. I believe that the amount of money collected is huge.
I know from my own experience of driving a trap from Bundoran to Ballsbridge in 1981 to highlight the International Year of the Disabled that in every town and village people came out to give £1 or £2. If one wanted to be a crook, nobody would know the amount collected. There should be more strict control. The Irish people are very generous and I collected £21,000 on that trip. This type of collection is open to abuse and I have no doubt it is being abused. None of us wants in any way to hurt or hinder the genuine people. I believe the genuine people will applaud us because they are annoyed. Charities would get more if we could put out what I would regard as the business people who are making money out of it for their own basic use. This is what we want to get at.
The Minister, when he comes to deal with this in legislation, will be helped by this debate here. His officials know exactly how we are thinking. I am convinced that those of us who have a handicap and who are involved in all this area know the temptations, dangers and problems that can arise. For that reason I believe he will have better legislation as a result of our debate here. I am sure the Minister will take those points into consideration and will bring in some suitable legislation. Perhaps everything is being done above-board. I hope it is. Justice must be done and that justice must be seen to be done.
Before I call Senator Reynolds — and this is breaking all the rules of the House — the Minister mentioned different Ministers who are responsible, such as the Minister for Social Welfare. For 25 years I have been chairman of the Clare Federation for the Mentally Handicapped. The kind of money we have collected over that period is perhaps over £300,000. There is a section that has worried me. I have tried to deal with it over the years with different doctors and different people who have served with me. We would like to ask the Department of Justice to have some control over licences being handed to people from other countries coming in to County Clare collecting. I am saying it because some of the gardaí have very graciously approached people whom they were not sure were above-board and yet they found they had licences from the Minister's Department. We did a check on one particular one and found that it was not correct. We never went into another county with a licence, either from our own Garda or from a Garda in another constituency.
I feel that is one area where the Minister has absolute control. I am sure that Senator Fennell, Senator O'Connell and Senator Reynolds — and all of us collecting a large amount of money — know that every pound is put into their schools for the children. These other people come in and they usually move into an area where there is a success story and where people are giving willingly. They see a £300,000 school being built and think that that is a good county to hit. The licences are given out by somebody in the Minister's Department. The Minister might look at that part of it and remember that I said it here this evening. I should not be contributing. I would love to be on the floor of the Seanad for this particular debate.
We all recognise that up to now — and this is totally apolitical — there was never any serious effort made by anybody to bring the whole thing together. I am trying to do that because responsibility was spread right across the board. I will be very frank when I say that to try to pull all the threads together is much more difficult than it looks. I have to try to do that because I admit the weakness in the legislation for which I have responsibility. It is totally insufficient and not good enough. Anybody can go to the gardaí and get a licence under the Streets and House-to-House Collections Act, 1962. I am not sure whether I can do anything about what An Cathaoirleach is saying about a geographical limitation. We might try to tighten up the whole thing. It is going to be very difficult.
Senator Cregan made a very good point that some charities are doing excellent work. Practically all charities are doing better work than the State could ever do. Everybody will sing the praises of the St. Vincent de Paul Society and other organisations. We are all bound to help them, not hinder them. We also have responsibility to the community. The Minister for Health has had an involvement here as has the Minister for Finance, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Minister for Social Welfare. I am putting it honestly to you.
In the last Government, Deputy Jim O'Keeffe as Junior Minister in the Department of Foreign Affairs made an effort to get the thing up and running. However, he got side-tracked or met obstacles that he was not able to overcome. I am not saying anything that he has not said himself in the Dáil when the matter was discussed. My officials and I have been banging our heads and kicking tails in recent times to try to get the whole thing on the one table, so that we can see where we are going from there. When we get the type of information we need we will have to see where we go from there. We will have to tread very carefully, bearing in mind the freedom that is required for the successful operation of genuine bona fide voluntary organisations. One cannot put obstacles in their way in the form of bureaucracy or red tape. That would kill initiative. The St. Vincent de Paul Society in Belmullet might apply to a central agency here in Dublin for permission from the Minister for Justice of the day for permission to collect for St. Vincent de Paul and if they had to wait a week or two, or even three, they might get fed up.
We have to take into account all the interests involved in charities. We have to get all their views. We have to set up the structures for that. We have a lot of things to do. I am not at liberty to go into what is in my mind as of now, because I have not the approval from the Government, but I hope to have it within the next couple of weeks with a plan, or a type of programme and some type of an approach to the problem where everybody's interest will be taken into account and everybody's interest will be examined in detail. We hope to have people involved who can advise as to what we should do. Certainly, the one overriding thing is that we will stop those who are exploiting others. Everybody here would cry out to high heaven if we did not do that. We must hit them as hard as we can and put them out of business immediately. Then we have to stop those who are siphoning off too much of what they collect.
People are giving because they want to be generous. Other speakers have said that we are very generous people by nature and we all give, and give and give more. We are generous in other areas. In this area we could never be generous to a fault in helping out those less fortunate than we are. We all want to do that on the understanding that the money will go where it should go, that we will not have the situation which we know exists in certain areas. I would think that before Christmas I will have proposals for the Government. Please God, they are going on the right road and in the right direction. I am sure that the House will agree at this particular time that we are making a worthwhile start in an area that has been left aside for a long time, perhaps too long.
I appreciate what the Minister has said. I know this is a very sensitive area. No doubt his Department and everybody will have to tread very carefully in bringing in legislation which would enable people to do the good charitable work that they have been doing but not to create too much bureaucracy that would hinder this work. I do take your point as well a Chathaoirligh, about people coming into areas. We are not as lucky in Leitrim as you are in Clare in that we have only a few small farmers. We are not affected as badly in the sense that we would not get as many people coming into our areas as you would in larger urban centres where there is more wealth and more people and the money is easier to collect.
I did not say it was easy to collect it.
You would have no problem. That smile would dazzle them. A problem, of course, also is to be able to define a charity. The legislation will have to be very specific. That is something that will have to be given a lot of consideration. If you take any local sports club, any type of football, or badminton club, you cannot very well deem it a charity, but such clubs do tremendous local community work along with charitable organisations. In recent years organisations have done great community work. Even charitable organisations have given employment. For the record of the House I would like to compliment the St. Vincent de Paul Society in Ballinamore, County Leitrim, where I come from. In 1970 they came up with the idea that the St. Vincent de Paul Society, Government aided but basically self-funded, should raise money. The money raised was sufficient to build 20 old persons' dwellings in Ballinamore and a community centre which was known by the name of "Tráthnóna", which was a very appropriate name. It has increased in size from 20 to 35 dwellings at the moment. This has taken responsibility from local authorities. We are all aware of the pressures on local authorities.
It is appropriate for me to congratulate the St. Vincent de Paul Society. I hope in the next number of years they can further expand. It is tremendous work. It has given a lot of employment in the locality. There are people looking after maintenance. It is all being looked after by the local St. Vincent de Paul organisation.
We have to compliment a lot of charitable organisations countrywide who have done tremendous work nationally and internationally, such as Gorta, Concern, GOAL and the Simon Community. No doubt, Senator B. Ryan will speak about these people who have done tremendous work. They must be helped along as the Minister has said previously. We have to be very careful as to what type of legislation charities would come under, because bureaucracy could hinder good work being done.
I have just one further point to make. I listened to the Minister. There is an Act covering door to door collections. In my part of the country at around Christmas time, or a little before it, we have an organisation which I would say is illegal — the Provisional IRA — coming around collecting from door to door. This is an intimidating factor to a lot of people. I used to wonder how this organisation could actually go from door to door collecting money. That is a freedom that has to be looked at because there is an intimidatory factor. People in my area will give them money but it is out of fear rather than out of agreement in what they are doing. Certainly to me that is not a charitable organisation. Legislation would have to take account of such activity and try to outlaw that type of collection.
There is just one other point that I find disturbing. In the last number of years everybody will have been aware of young people coming into areas representing different charities and different organisations and collecting for unemployed persons, for instance. It is not that they are hustling. It is a job as far as they are concerned, and it is not their fault. I am not blaming those young people who have to try to make money. It is a job as far as they are concerned. It is a sad day for this country when young people have to hustle and to ask individuals to buy tickets so that they will get a commission. You ask them what they are for. They give you an identity card. As the Minister has stated, people will see the card but do not know where the money is going or how it is to be spent. It is the last thing you will hear about. Organisations could be fronts for anything. These young people are in a situation where they are gathering money and I would say that 90 per cent of them do not know where it is going. That is a very sad state of affairs.
The motion is a worthwhile motion and I am glad to hear the Minister is trying to get the position concerning charities under control. I wish him every success in that. I hope that he will have a more equitable situation as a result.
This is a most welcome discussion. May I apologise to the Minister? I am supposed to be at two meetings at present, and here at the same time, and even at my most sanctified I cannot manage that.
I accept the Senator's apology.
I missed the Minister's speech. We Irish people are extraordinarily generous by any standards. Irish people are generous to charities that operate within this country and they are generous to charities that operate outside this country. A number of indicators of this have come to my attention through my involvement with the Simon Community, which is the one I know most about. Notwithstanding the extraordinary increase, four or fivefold, in unemployment in Cork in the last seven or eight years, and the obvious huge drop in disposable income that people in that city had, the Simon Community has not experienced a similar decline in its income from public donations. There has been perhaps a slight wavering. It has not increased perhaps as fast as would have been desirable but, given the huge impact on people's spending power the facts are that people are prepared to dig even deeper into a restricted amount of money to sustain those charities.
I also remember Christmas some years ago when we were all horrified by the scale of the famine in Ethiopia and when huge sums of money were raised in a short time. There was a huge focus of public attention at the time coming up to Christmas, which is a traditional period of giving to charities in this country. There was a huge focus of attention on Ethiopia. At the same time I know that from the point of view of the Simon Community and other charities that I have discussed it with, like Share in Cork, they did not notice any significant drop in their income because of the huge public focus on Ethiopia. People did not say: "I will give it to Ethiopia this year instead of to Share in Cork or the St. Vincent de Paul Society" or anybody else. People said: "we will give more because of the problems that people are made aware of".
We are a very compassionate people. We are still a country which is not so much infected with the sort of individualistic indifferentism that is more widespread in North America and Western Europe. People do believe that they have a common bond with other people and an obligation. They do not even think in terms of obligation. They take it for granted that it is a good thing for us and for the individual to try to help other people. Therefore, the generosity which is so extensive deserves above all to be protected. It deserves to be protected so that that generosity is not exploited, and so that is not misrepresented and people cannot purport to be in charge of charitable organisations when, in fact, the organisation may perhaps be semi-commercial or indeed, the involvement of the individuals in it may be semi-commercial.
I have a number of specific criticisms. It is, of course, extremely difficult to define a charity in a way which does not exclude many good causes. I am aware in particular that in Britain the way charities regulations have worked has been felt by groups like OXFAM and Save the Children to seriously inhibit their ability to influence public opinion on issues of international aid, for instance, and things like that. The registrar has on occasions required them to withdraw advertisements because he felt they were excessively political.
In my view, you cannot really define charities simply in terms of providers of a service. In this country the initiators of re-thinking on this issue were the St. Vincent de Paul Society. There is evidence in the Cork Society that they are more than able now, and more than willing, to issue quite trenchant criticisms of public policy where they feel that the needs of those they serve call for it. They have done this in the area of social welfare. They have done it in the area of things like illegal money lending and the need for reform. They have done it in a variety of areas. They see that as an equal part of their job. Though it may make life uncomfortable from time to time, I think most people in the political process feel that it is a worthwhile thing that those who devote themselves to the service of the less well off should contribute to the debate about how public policy should change to deal with the services for the less well off. I do not think any of us would be happy if people got involved in specifically party politics but most volunteer organisations are far too sensible to do that.
That is an area which we should identify. Therefore, to define charities in such narrow legal terms that their capacity to speak or to criticise or to make comments would be restricted would be undesirable. For instance, a particularly memorable contribution by the St. Vincent de Paul Society was on the issue of our child care services when they funded the provisional publication of the care memorandum almost — I hate to think of it — 20 years ago. That produced, and is still producing, a change in public opinion. It influenced thinking amongst political parties. It influenced thinking in a variety of areas. It was a contribution from the St. Vincent de Paul Society which facilitated that publication.
One area that has given considerable concern is the activity of professional fund raisers. It is a matter of considerable regret and a matter that deserves immediate regulation. Nobody can be sure, when you are dealing with professional fund raising, what proportion of what you contribute is going to the voluntary organisation. If people are dealing with the traditional kind of raffles and things like that, you are talking about small scale money very often, but with regard to the professional fund raisers going from door to door selling lines nobody is too sure.
Figures are quoted and in some cases people talk about the voluntary organisations getting as low as 25 per cent. Other people say much higher figures are given. It would be fairly simple to regulate so that where the people selling these things are not volunteers the literature which they use must contain a statement of the proportion of your contribution that is guaranteed to go to the voluntary organisation. It is a bit like a Government health warning on a package of cigarretes, simply saying "This is a professional fund raising exercise. The people who work on it are being paid but the guarantee is that the voluntary organisations named will get 50 per cent", 25 per cent or whatever you like — in other words, a specific statement of the amount. People would be quite taken aback if they discovered what precisely the money was going to. It is not a criticism of the people involved.
I am well aware of the fact that many of the young people who sell lines on various raffles and various other fund raising activities here in Dublin and in Cork are doing it because they have no money and it is a way of raising a few bob. If they are being paid as a proportion of what they raise the public are entitled to know that, too. It is an extremely important area. The people are entitled to know at least to a certain extent how voluntary organisations use their money. It ought to be possible to ensure that all registered charities publish at least a simple statement of accounts saying how much they raised, how much went into certain defined areas, such as administration and into services or into publicity and into paying salaries for fund raising. A fairly simple form of accounts would identify the critical factor.
I would not dream of telling the Minister or his Department how to draw up the details of this. The fundamental question is, as the motion says, accountability and public information. Ordinary people are extremely generous. They do not get mean minded because organisations spend money on administration but they like to know what is going on and they need to know what is going on. One could speculate that perhaps even the salaries of persons employed by voluntary organisations ought to be public knowledge. In most cases they are quite low and people would be surprised at how badly persons who work for voluntary organisations are paid. At best they are paid the going rate in the public service and often considerably less than it. We had a major dispute in a voluntary organisation which has its headquarters near here because people were quite far behind the official public service rates.
Another area that needs to be looked at, which is not necessarily the brief of the Minister who is here, is the question of covenanting. I cannot work out the ins and outs of what voluntary organisations can benefit from covenants and what cannot. I know that most charities cannot benefit from covenanting. I also know that certain bodies that would surprise you can benefit from covenanting. For instance, I am aware of a private fee paying secondary school in my own city which was able to assure donors that if they signed a covenant they could get roughly £2.50 for every £1 that the donor contributed. I find it rather peculiar that charities that are dealing with the poor are excluded from such provision when private fee paying second level schools are apparently included in such a provision. It seems like an anomaly. It seems unfair and it does not seem like a proper way to do business.
A system of covenanting directed and targeted towards charitable organisations dealing with the poor and the underprivileged would facilitate those organisations. It would cost the taxman a few bob, but, given the usual estimate of what is spent by voluntary organisations I do not think it would be enormous. It would help a lot. There is a lot of circular funding going on, where the State gives money and the charity pay VAT on things to pay money back to the State. A lot of simplification could be done which would simplify the administrative work of voluntary organisations.
Even in areas where public funding is going to organisations there is no real accountability of the money spent. Are moneys meant for charity really going for charitable purposes and charitable outlets? There are instances I can recall on a personal basis where they are not. So the accountability in State funding is not as it should be.
This is an issue on which I gather the Minister said there is a need for regulation but there is a need for a light-handed regulation which leaves a lot of room for manoeuvre, flexibility and imagination and for new organisations to develop, for instance, community action groups aimed at developing community initiatives to generate employment. They might not be the conventional models of charities but they ought to get the status of charities because of the work they do in deprived communities. It is a tossup and I think it needs a set of general principles.
The real regulation is public opinion and, therefore, the more we insist that the public know about proportions of expenditure and salaries paid for fund raising etc. the more they will be able to distinguish between the bodies they want to help and the ones they do not. There is also a necessity to ensure that any special benefits, i.e. convenants, are evenly available to all charities or are not available at all. There should not be some bodies who because of historical reasons are able to claim this sort of status and many others who are not. I think that is extremely important.
As I said at the outset, given the experience of worthwhile and important bodies like Oxfam and Save the Children Fund in the United Kingdom, we ought not to be excessively restrictive about the role of voluntary organisations in a country like our own where people are interested and concerned in the role of voluntary organisations in attempting to influence public policy. I have a personal interest in this as I am connected with a voluntary organisation which sees itself as having a loud and often very noisy role to play in influencing public policy. I do not think voluntary organisations should get involved in party politics. I do think they should be free in a broad way to contribute to public debate and be quite specific about what they think about specific issues. I think that is the way to influence public opinion, it is the way to form public opinion.
The Irish people deserve protection from those who would abuse their generosity. The Irish people deserve to have their commitment to other people protected. We need to foster voluntary organisations. I do not see any sort of idealistic world where something called the State would provide all the services for everybody. I regard that sort of model of socialism as quite antiquated. There are other dynamics that need to be liberated and among them is the willingness of small communities to look after each other and be given structures that will facilitate that.
People are over-powered very often by the scale of the State. It does not have to be a geographical scale, it is simply the scale relative to an individual's experience. I think having voluntary organisations based in local communities is one of the ways in which people feel they can participate in the life of their community, and in the lives of people who are perhaps excluded in one way or another from their community. Therefore, we should be fostering and encouraging voluntary services and organisations.
It is much easier to do that if people can be absolutely certain of the bona fides of all the voluntary organisations they are dealing with. As I said earlier on in my remarks, the best way to foster that sort of bona fides in my opinion is by public accountability based on the maximisation of information available to the public. It is better than any amount of regulations to make sure the public and media know precisely what each organisation does with its money. Therefore, I quite enthusiastically support the motion and hope that the Minister will be able to produce legislation or regulations or whatever is necessary quite quickly.
I had not intended to speak but I have been inspired to rise to my feet having listened to fellow Senators. I would like to approach the problem from two particular standpoints. First, as a person who because of the good fortune of being in a profession and not having ever had to face the consequences of poverty, is inevitably approached from time to time to make a contribution to a charity. Secondly, I would like to take up the point which Senator Brendan Ryan raised in relation to the need to preserve and indeed to encourage voluntary effort in a healthy state. Thirdly, I would like to say that the point made by Senator Cregan is possibly of the essence of the dilemma.
Let me start with the first point. When you go to your front door, especially in the North of Ireland, at night when somebody knocks and you wonder who is on the other side you are quite relieved at first when you find it is somebody with a box looking for money. Perhaps one's relief is the reason for one's next response which is indeed to respond as quickly as possible, to have the matter resolved there and then while not appearing to be too stingy. At the same time you do not perhaps want to appear too generous in case you are opening the floodgates for the next few nights. Having struck what one hopes to be a modest balance you make your contribution and it is only about 15 minutes later you suddenly wonder who he or she was and whether that wee box was going for the purpose they said.
You do not have that problem in a small community if you recognise the face and you can relate it to the source and the bona fides about which Senator Ryan spoke but you certainly have it in a country which is in a considerable state of upset, as Ireland is at the moment, if you do not recognise the face and the person disappears into the dark and you wonder where your money is going and for what particular reason.
I speak now from the point of view of ignorance of the existing law, so forgive me if I am emphasising something which is already in position but I feel that there is a need for those collecting for charity to wear a number. The Garda Síochána should know when charitable collections are going to be made, who will be making them and have access to the names and the numbers. That is not being offensive particularly if it is properly explained, as a good public relations exercise, and particularly if the reason for this is understood, the uncertainty, the fear and sometimes the resentment of those who are on the receiving end. At least they should be given the assurance that there is some comeback and when number 1025 disappears out through the gate they should be satisfied that, if necessary, they can check on the matter.
In respect of the first point, I would also say that notification, which perhaps is already provided for in the legislation, of any charitable collections which are to be made on any scale in the community should appear in advance in the press so that one can tie up the appeal with what one can read and, therefore, feel a certain amount of added security that one is not, as they say, being taken for a ride.
The next question is the one of voluntary effort. I think the Republic never suffered from what we almost suffered from, the eclipse of voluntary effort in the heyday of the State institutionalism. There was a belief prevalent in the sixties, having had almost 20 years of the welfare state, that only those who were qualified and trained and only those who had some special expertise for which they could carry a certificate should be allowed or permitted to carry out a social service, that the rest of us were unable to do so. One was trying to create a society in which everything could be classified and certified.
We all know now that one cannot create good feeling and health in a community if that is the limit of one's approach. There must be a blend of the statutory and the voluntary and any state will go underground if it cannot mobilise what Schumacher in his book Small is Beautiful referred to as the intangible assets, the assets of commitment, morale, enthusiasm, inter-relatedness, devotion and so on. We must, therefore, encourage the charitable instinct and distinguish between the charitable instinct and the patronising instinct. Obviously, one does not want charity at the expense of patronage but what one does want is genuine charity that comes from the heart and the goodwill of the people, particularly in a community. Here again we get back to the word “community”. If the charitable instinct can be developed in a community and if we talk about scale and community rather than size and centre, then we are trying to develop a good feeling among our citizens where they are close enough and inter-relate closely enough to be able to respond, and have the goodwill to see the community flourish. Therefore we must encourage this charitable instinct.
I wish to refer to the question of accountability which other Senators have already referred to. I agree entirely with Senator Willie Farrell when he said that no exceptions should be made. The question is, how we go about it. Judging by the Minister's responses, both verbal and non-verbal, to the proposals being made by Senator Cregan I feel quite confident that this will be done in a very sensitive manner. I am quite certain that those organisations which are traditional to Ireland and which are highly respected will understand when the whole thing is explained to them, provided the trouble is taken to explain it to them, preferably in a direct rather than an indirect approach. We want to have traditional charities with us. I support fully the words of praise lavished on the St. Vincent de Paul Society which has done so much work throughout the world. Those of us who have worked in Third World countries can testify to that.
We want to know much more about the expenses paid by charities because, as we know, expenses can cover a multitude of sins. What can be put down as expenses may, in fact, be a form of salary. We want to know about the fees, salaries and wages paid and we want to have this said openly. If it is apparent that a charity is being run on a shoe string and that the officers of that charity are doing their work for a pittance that is an added reason why people will feel more generosity in helping the charity to do their work. If, on the other hand, vast salaries are being paid, then it is time questions were asked. I would also ask the Minister to ban completely, which Senator Reynolds referred to, door to door collections where people can go around in a very threatening mood to collect money for organisations for which the person from whom money is being requested has little or no sympathy and may even have antipathy but who has to give money because of fear.
In that respect, it is time we looked at the issue of canvassing for signatures at the doorstep. Exactly the same thing applies when one is confronted by a heavy at the front door. It takes a lot of courage to say no, that one is not prepared to sign. It is time that we looked at that aspect of the door to door knock as well. Anyone who lives in Northern Ireland will be well aware of this, I am sure it happens here also. At times of tension extraordinary things called referenda seem to be used as a means of bringing people to one's doorstep who certainly are not prepared to take no for an answer, if there is any way of not doing so.
The question of charity by mail also needs to be looked at. How can we deal with the vast amount of unsolicited mail that comes through our letterboxes? What controls are in place, particularly to help those who may be weak and who may respond in circumstances where if they were either more mature or aware they would not be so gullible? I think the question of accountability in relation to the demand for funding for so-called charities by mail on a wide scale also needs to be looked at.
I agree with the point made in regard to covenanting. It is nonsensical that one can use the device of covenanting to enable people to have private education in privileged circumstances when deserving charities looking after the underprivileged have difficulty in obtaining the same degree of covenanting.
I would like to add my voice to what has already been said in giving the Minister encouragement. I wish him every success. I have every confidence that he will come up in his usual manner with very fine legislation and I hope by the time the legislation is thoroughly debated we will be glad to support it.
I am very pleased that this motion has received support from all sides of the House. It has been a very useful debate. Listening to Senator John Robb I am more convinced than ever that it is a great idea to have him in the Seanad, he has contributed so constructively on so many issues and legislation. I would like to congratulate him. He is a great asset to this House.
We would all agree that most charities are bona fide and command our respect. As the Minister rightly said, without them there would be great problems and so much would land in the lap of the State that it would have to provide resources which it could ill-afford to provide. Having listened to the Members I must say I was much impressed with the support we received and with the very useful contributions they made. More than anything else it was emphasised that there was a need for some form of action to protect the public. I have received quite a number of letters of support from both members of the public and from legitimate charities, with the members of the public expressing their disquiet and the legitimate charities agreeing with the need for control and monitoring to eliminate these fly-by-night charities which exploit the generosity of the public and create great problems for established charities.
I was very much impressed by what the Minister had to say. I am happier now than ever that he intends to take some action. I know this is a very difficult area and he has to tread very warily. It is very easy to announce a five point plan, do this, that and the other but one creates more problems than one tries to solve in the process. That is the big problem. We do not want bureaucracy destroying all voluntary and individual effort; we do not want that at all. That is why we cannot rush in. We have emphasised that there is public disquiet, that something must be done, that it is going to be looked at very soon and appropriate action will be taken. We cannot claim to have a perfect answer and I recognise that the Minister cannot give one. I must say that I was impressed by the recommendations of Gorta who wrote to me in 1987 with some proposals. They said that charities should be registered or licensed with some statutory body, perhaps a companies registration office or a register of friendly societies. Therefore, only charities properly registered could apply to the authority for a permit to collect money from the public. Secondly, they recommended that all charities should account for their income or expenditure and that all charitable organisations should be subject to the Companies Act. They suggested that administration costs should be determined by law, that clear guidelines should be laid down as to what constitutes administration and that commission arrangements are open to abuse. They proposed that an exemption should be made in the case of bodies raising funds up to a maximum of £5,000 annually. They also recommended that there be control of the number of charities collecting at any one time and that serious attempts should be made to enforce the regulations regarding identification, the type of container, authorisation to collect and the minimum age of those collecting. These are guidelines the Minister could reflect on. He has probably seen them and therefore I am not going to take up the time of this House unnecessarily.
We have said all we need to say. It was wonderful to see that there was all-party agreement on the need for action to be taken. I was very impressed by what the Cathaoirleach had to say. There is a provision in Standing Orders that enables the Cathoirleach or Ceann Comhairle to step down from the Chair to make a contribution from the floor of the House. The Cathaoirleach has her own views on the subject and she should be given the opportunity to make such a contribution. She expressed how she felt about this issue and she was quite entitled to say what she did.
I wish the Minister every success on what I said is a most difficult task. I will be looking forward very anxiously, along with everybody else in this House and indeed the public, to the proposals he will bring before the Government and the legislation he hopes to introduce to bring this problem under control.
There was one case I referred to in Cork, and the Minister referred to this, in regard to an organisation sending out Christmas cards. I admire the person's frankness and honesty. He admitted he was not collecting for a charity at all, he said he had the franchise for Ireland and that the money never went to support the disabled. He had the franchise for Ireland. He kept 60 per cent of the profits and he sent the other 40 per cent back to some company in Liechtenstein. He admitted this and was very honest about it. He is not supporting a charity and his business will probably collapse. I do not think he was making much profit; people did not return the moneys to him and he had suffered some losses. He is from Cork.
You will find an odd Corkman who does it too.
One charity was making so much money that one employee was able to embezzle that charity of £50,000 without their knowing it. That is an indication of how an element of laxity can creep into organisations who are so well supported by the Irish people. As I said, we will welcome any proposals that will be brought forward by the Minister.
When is it proposed to sit again?
It is proposed to sit at 2.30 p.m. on Wednesday, 16 November 1988.