The Charities Bill 2009 was signed by President Mary McAleese on Saturday 28th February 2009. The Development of the Bill is the responsibility of the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, which led highly participatory drafting process. The Bill is the result of a commitment to reform charity law made in the Agreed Programme for Government 2002.
The stated aim of the Bill is to provide better regulation, support and management of charities in the state, to enhance transparency and accountability in the sector, to increase public confidence in it and to protect against charitable fraud. The Charities Act provides for a mandatory registration, new Charities Regulatory Authority and a “Register of Charities”. Charities will have to keep proper books of account, and provide information to the new Authority on their charitable activities which will be publicly available.
In announcing the enactment of the Bill the Minister of State at the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, John Curran, T.D., Minister Curran said -
“This is a very important day for the charities sector in Ireland. There has been talk for many years of introducing legislation to regulate the charities sector in Ireland, and I am very pleased to be now in a position to deliver the Charities Act 2009, which will provide the cornerstone for strong, yet proportionate, regulation of charities. I would like to thank my predecessors as Minister of State, Noel Ahern and Pat Carey, whose considerable personal commitment, along with the support of the Attorney General and his officials, brought to fruition the Act we have before us today. I would also like to thank representatives from across the political spectrum, and from the charities sector itself, for their positive engagement over the last number of years in the inclusive consultative approach taken by my Department.”
Parallel, the Department has been working in partnership with the sector, through Irish Charities Tax Research Ltd., to establish the feasibility of having non-Statutory Codes of Practice to regulate the operational aspects of charitable fundraising. For further information see: www.ictr.ie
ECNL developed detailed analysis of the Bill and the fundraising aspects of it in its Study on “Recent Public and Self-regulatory Initiatives Improving Transparency and Accountability of Non-profit Organisations in the European Union".