Outline of charity regulation published

Howard Lake | 23 April 2007 | News

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• Ireland

The Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, which has responsibility for charity regulation, has published a summary of what the new legislation relating to fundraising and other charity regulation will look like. The intention is for the charities bill to be enacted later in the year.

‘Principal Features of the Charities Bill 2007’ has been posted on the department website and amongst other issues addresses the modernisation of fundraising legislation. The last significant attempt to update fundraising regulation was the Street and House to House Collections Act 1962.

The approach proposed in the Bill is to develop a three-pronged approach through:

a) modernising aspects of the 1962 provisions to reflect changes in methods of collection, revising the definition of collection itself and, in particular, introducing a permit regime for recently developed fundraising methods such as collection by way of direct debit or other promises of money;

b) conferring the requisite powers on the Charities Regulator to require charities to provide information concerning their fund-raising activities, e.g. in their applications for registration, as well as in their annual accounts and annual returns; and

c) implementing agreed Codes of Good Practice in relation to the actual fund-raising operations, while retaining reserve powers for the Minister, after consultation with the Authority, to make statutory regulations on the manner and conduct of fundraising if such an approach proves ineffective.

Work on the agreed Codes of Good Practice has already advanced significantly, in co-operation with the charities sector. The information can be found on www.pobail.ie (under charity regulation).

About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale. He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.