Philanthropy chair was paid lobbyist
Howard Lake | 13 March 2014 | News
Philanthropy Ireland has admitted that it paid the chairman of the government-backed Philanthropy Forum, Frank Flannery, to lobby on its behalf.
Philanthropy Ireland is supported by foundations, including Atlantic Philanthropies and the One Foundation, to help promote philanthropy in Ireland while the Philanthropy Forum is a joint initiative of government and the charity sector which has led the National Giving Campaign.
Previously the Irish finance minister, Michael Noonan, said that he had been lobbied on a ‘pro bono’ basis by Mr Flannery. In the year that Mr Flannery began lobbying for Philanthropy Ireland at a fee of €60,000, the National Giving Campaign received nearly €600,000 from the Irish government.
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Mr Flannery also lobbied the government on a proposal to give wealthy Irish people resident overseas additional residency privileges in return for large donations to charity. The government subsequently rejected the proposal.
The chief executive of Philanthropy Ireland, Séamus Mulconry, told the Irish Times that it was his idea to appoint Mr Flannery as a lobbyist and his fee was paid out of funding received from the membership of the organisation.
Mr Flannery was also involved in the controversy around the Rehab organisation where he was also a lobbyist and director. Mr Flannery, who has close links with the ruling Fine Gael party, has resigned from his roles as chairman of the Philanthropy Forum and as a director and lobbyist for Rehab.
Source: www.philanthropy.ie
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.