GOREY CHARITY CEO ‘NOT SURPRISED’ AT NEWS OF SCANDAL
CONSOLE chief Paul Kelly once threatened legal action against Gorey-based charity Talk to Tom, after Kelly claimed he had acquired the exclusive rights to bring QPR suicide intervention training to Ireland, and ordered the Gorey charity to stop its training programme.
Talk to Tom CEO Ray Cullen said this week he was shocked at the extent of the alleged misuse of funds at Console by Kelly and his family, but there were no surprises at the news.
Ray said that in October 2013, the Console chief, through his operations manager, threatened legal action when Ray began to run QPR training in Wexford. ‘ They said they paid a substantial amount of money to the QPR Institute in Washington for exclusivity in Ireland,’ he explained.
He added that Kelly had trained three people to do QPR training, and they were already charging people to do the course. ‘I had brought it to Ireland first and they tried to stop me from delivering the programme and instructed me to cease and desist,’ said Ray. ‘I said I was licensed to deliver QPR training in Ireland and I had no intention of ceasing it. The two questions I had were, “why would any suicide prevention programme want exclusivity?” and “where did the money come from to pay for this exclusivity? Was it from donations?” I was told that had no relevance.’
Ray already had it in writing from Washington that there were no restrictions on QPR training.’ QPR stands for ‘Question, Persuade, Refer’, and it gives people the skills to recognise when someone is in crisis; how to ask the right questions to persuade them to look for help; and how to refer them on to that help.
While Kelly’s attitude began to ring alarm bells for Ray, he still recognised that Console as an organisation does important work, and described the extent of the allegations as ‘absolutely horrific.’
‘My biggest concern is the impact it will have on all charities, ourselves included,’ he said. ‘It spells out the relevance of having community services that have complete transparency, like we do,’ he added. ‘We have six board members with specific roles, and we have put in place a lot of governance. Our financial controller is an accountant and a board member.’
He said that people did get help and services from Console, so it’s understandable that a lot of money was raised locally for the charity. He said that sometimes people prefer to go to an organisation outside the local area to seek help.
‘I think it will have an impact on donations,’ he commented. ‘But we are getting more calls from people from outside the town who are in crisis. Some of them have said they would have contacted Console.
‘ The counselling services that they provide are excellent,’ he added. ‘People shouldn’t allow the actions of Paul Kelly to impact on the support they would have given Console, or even ourselves. As an organisation, I would hate to see and impact on the support Console was getting.’