# Top up payments controversy hits donations

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2013/12/02/top-payments-controversy-hits-donations/
- Published: 2013-12-02T21:18:00+00:00
- Author: Howard Lake

**The controversy over top up payments from charitable funds going to senior hospital
staff has hit donations, according to Fundraising Ireland. 
Fundraising Ireland’s
chief executive, Anne Hanniffy, told the [Irish times](http://www.irishtimes.com)
that its members were reporting people cancelling their charitable donations and
that appeal funds were down. Chief executive Anne Hanniffy said the revelations 
were having a “disproportionate and unfair impact” on the funding efforts of charities
and people reliant on such charities. She made her comments after it emerged that
money raised by charitable company Friends and Supporters of the Remedial Clinic,
which generates funds from a lottery, were used to top up the salaries of senior
staff at the Central Remedial Clinic. “This is concerning for hard-pressed organisations
so openly reliant on public generosity and support,” Ms Hanniffy said. “It is doubly
concerning when the source of people’s frustration is an issue which has absolutely
nothing to do with the way in which the vast majority of high quality not-for-profit
organisations are funded and operated.” She said Fundraising Ireland believed transparency,
accountability and regulation were vital to any institution. “We owe it to donors
that their money goes where they expect it to go.” 

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