‘Dominant individuals’ a concern for charities
The body that registers and regulates charities has reported a drop in the number of concerns reported to it about charitable organisations last year.
In its annual report, the Charities Regulator said that it had received reports of 493 concerns – down 14% from 574 in 2023.
Governance issues accounted for most of the concerns raised (42%), followed by issues linked to financial control and transparency (20%).
Chief Executive Madeleine Delaney described the figure as “relatively low”, given that there were about 11,500 charities in Ireland.
Governance
“The most common issues relate to governance, and a recurring theme is that of dominant behaviour, typically by one individual in a CEO, chair, or founder role, who exerts or exercises excessive control over the charity’s governance and operations,” she stated.
“This is a challenge, and it’s an area that we, as the Charities Regulator, are preparing guidance to support trustees in dealing with,” she added.
Delaney pointed out that, while trustees were volunteers, their role carried “significant responsibility”, as they were responsible for the control and management of the charity under law.
“While charity trustees can delegate tasks, they cannot delegate accountability,” she stated.
Investigations
During 2024, the Charities Regulator closed three statutory investigations.
Reports on the investigations into Inner City Helping Homeless and the Peter McVerry Trust were published and are available on the regulator’s website.
A report into the ISPCA has not been published yet to avoid any potential impact on separate court proceedings that are currently in progress.
The regulator also took a range of other statutory actions – including removing 38 charities from the Register of Charities for failing to file annual reports with the Charities Regulator.
A further eight charities were prosecuted for failing to file their annual report.
‘Traffic-light’ system
Each charity is required to file an online annual report within ten months of its financial year-end, and details from these reports are published on the public register.
The regulator has developed a ‘traffic-light’ system to show more clearly where a charity was complying with its reporting obligations.
The system, which applies to annual reports due for filing from April 2025 onwards, indicates if a charity is on time in making its returns, is late, or has not filed at all.
The report shows that 60% of charities submitted their annual reports on time last year.
The report noted that there was a 43% jump in the number of views of charity records on the register last year, after a public-information campaign.
Deregistrations
During last year, 127 new charities were registered, bringing to 11,445 the total number of registered charities in Ireland at the end of 2024.
A further 199 charities were deregistered during the year – including the 38 for failing to file annual reports.
The watchdog pointed out that deregistrations could arise for a variety of reasons, such as failure to comply with legal requirements, findings of misconduct, or where the charity ceased to operate or changed its legal form.