Results 601-620 of 1,109,106 for in 'Dáil debates' OR in 'Committee meetings' (speaker:Máiría Cahill OR speaker:Catherine Murphy OR speaker:Gino Kenny OR speaker:Verona Murphy OR speaker:Joe Flaherty OR speaker:Richard Bruton OR speaker:Martin Heydon OR speaker:Mary Lou McDonald OR speaker:Micheál Martin OR speaker:Claire Kerrane OR speaker:Richard Bruton6 OR speaker:Peadar Tóibín OR speaker:Seán Crowe OR speaker:Carol Nolan OR speaker:Marc Ó Cathasaigh OR speaker:Paul Donnelly OR speaker:Jennifer Carroll MacNeill OR speaker:Ruairi Ó Murchú OR speaker:Joan Collins OR speaker:Mick Barry OR speaker:Jack Chambers OR speaker:Simon Harris OR speaker:John McGuinness OR speaker:Ossian Smyth OR speaker:Richard Bruton8)
- Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2023 - Charities Regulatory Authority (17 Oct 2024)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I thank Ms Drinan. I was involved in the Charities (Amendment) Act, which was passed by the select committee on rural and community development, of which I am a member. Ms Delaney said that some parts of this important Act are not commenced yet. I was going to say "Bill", but it was signed into law on, I think, 10 July. There were earlier questions about staffing and resourcing for the...
- Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2023 - Charities Regulatory Authority (17 Oct 2024)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh: Are the ICT system changes likely to be contracted out in the way Ms Delaney was describing earlier?
- Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2023 - Charities Regulatory Authority (17 Oct 2024)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh: Very good. I suppose that is more a future-facing question so perhaps it is not really properly a question for this committee. The atomic bomb the regulator can deploy is to have somebody removed from the charities register. Is that a power that is often invoked?
- Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2023 - Charities Regulatory Authority (17 Oct 2024)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh: Okay, and there are eight prosecutions initiated out of the 1,700 charities.
- Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2023 - Charities Regulatory Authority (17 Oct 2024)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh: What is the current status of those prosecutions?
- Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2023 - Charities Regulatory Authority (17 Oct 2024)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh: Are many more charities being considered? Are there more prosecutions on the way?
- Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2023 - Charities Regulatory Authority (17 Oct 2024)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh: How much of the staffing resource of the Charities Regulator is dedicated towards these kinds of prosecutions or removal from the register?
- Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2023 - Charities Regulatory Authority (17 Oct 2024)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh: This is an unusual question for the committee but is the regulator under-resourced in that area? I am surprised the regulator has only one dedicated staff member working on this.
- Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2023 - Charities Regulatory Authority (17 Oct 2024)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh: That is very good. I will ask a very big question in two minutes and I do not suppose we will get to the bottom of it. Approved housing bodies are becoming a bigger part of housing provision and they are going to become difficult. There are encumbered assets with loans against them. There are unencumbered assets where some of these houses are being bought through fund-raising and have no...
- Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2023 - Charities Regulatory Authority (17 Oct 2024)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh: Is it open to AHBs to change from charitable status? One of my concerns is that AHBs with charitable status may decide to change their status, which would lead to a complicated question about assets.
- Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2023 - Charities Regulatory Authority (17 Oct 2024)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh: Has the regulator the power to retrospectively make sure the clauses are in place?
- Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2023 - Charities Regulatory Authority (17 Oct 2024)
Catherine Murphy: I thank Ms Delaney for answering. It was a very big question that took up two minutes.I have no doubt we will come back to this matter, including for the benefit of myself. I suggest that Deputy O'Connor makes his contribution before we take a break.
- Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2023 - Charities Regulatory Authority (17 Oct 2024)
Catherine Murphy: I hope the Deputy reported it.
- Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2023 - Charities Regulatory Authority (17 Oct 2024)
Catherine Murphy: Yes. We will take a ten-minute break. The meeting is suspended.
- Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2023 - Charities Regulatory Authority (17 Oct 2024)
Catherine Murphy: I welcome the witnesses back. I want to go back to the issue Deputy Ó Cathasaigh raised regarding approved housing bodies. I appreciate that some predate by a considerable distance the existence of the Charities Regulator. I have serious concerns about the asset base of properties for which the mortgage is paid off and that are now unencumbered. A couple of years ago, the Department...
- Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2023 - Charities Regulatory Authority (17 Oct 2024)
Catherine Murphy: The Charities Regulator is doing a piece of work with the Approved Housing Bodies Regulatory Authority. What is that work?
- Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2023 - Charities Regulatory Authority (17 Oct 2024)
Catherine Murphy: My attention was drawn to it when someone who was on the board of a small approved housing body was talking about their portfolio of properties. I was absolutely shocked by that. That is what prompted me to start asking questions about this. In theory, an organisation could change its constitution, but there are protections.
- Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2023 - Charities Regulatory Authority (17 Oct 2024)
Catherine Murphy: That goes to the governance and whoever is on the board of directors.
- Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2023 - Charities Regulatory Authority (17 Oct 2024)
Catherine Murphy: I am trying to envisage a situation. In the way AHBs are set up, there is often co-operation with the local authority. There would be a piece of land and housing would be developed, and that would be important because it brings some affordable housing supply. Some of this goes back decades. The bigger ones are of less concern because they were set up in a modern context and they are...
- Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2023 - Charities Regulatory Authority (17 Oct 2024)
Catherine Murphy: Who would bring that to the attention of the Charities Regulator? Is there something that can be identified in the accounts? Is it a question of a complaint coming to the regulator? Where are the routes from which it would get that information?