IRISH RED CROSS IN TURMOIL
+Board member quits over how f inances are managed + Three senior jobs being made redundant + Donations down by €1.2m + Staff numbers virtually halved
THE Irish Red Cross is cutting three senior full-time posts and leaving four positions unfilled in a desperate bid to survive a financial crisis.
The move comes as the Irish Mail on Sunday can reveal that one long-running board member, Darren Ryan, resigned as long ago as May after openly telling the board of his concerns about the management of certain funds and how money is being spent.
Another senior member is taking legal advice after learning that his post is being made redundant. Donations to the charity were down by as much as €1.2m over three years, from €8.1m in 2013 to €6.9m in 2016.
The depth of the crisis emerged yesterday as the charity, one of the largest in the
country, held a general assembly meeting at its headquarters on Merrion Square in Dublin where numerous financial issues put to them by the MoS were being raised, though they had not been on the original agenda. These include:
■ The resignation of Mr Ryan;
■ Cutting the role of head of international relations and co-operation;
■ Handing international accounts over to home countries;
■ 'Insufficient' State funding and the €1.2m drop in public donations;
■ Halving its workforce over four years;
Sources confirmed to the MoS that Mr Ryan, a long-running and distinguished board member, resigned in May. He and other board members expressed concerns about the management and how certain funds were being spent. A source said: 'He is a very principled man and it took a lot for him to resign, but he said he could not stand over what is
‘He said he couldn’t stand over what’s happening’
happening? A spokesman confirmed that a board member had resigned but did not say why and added that he is still a mem-ber of the general assembly. By September, the charity's workforce will nearly be halved, with SS staff being directly employed by head office, down from 98 staff in 2014. A spokesperson said there is a three-year strategy to create 'a more cost-effective organisation'. Irish Red Cross chairman Pat Carey, the former Fianna Fail minister, did not want to comment last night on how they are attempting to resolve the crisis.
But the 'lead of international rela-tions John Roche, who has 30 years of association with the charity, is seeking legal advice after a spokes-person said his post is being made redundant from September 7. Sources told the MoS: 'The way he has been treated is just appall-ing. It is shocking and insulting, not only to the man himself, but to all those who worked with him and those who care about the Irish Red Cross and its future.' The national training and quality support manager has also left the organisation and a third adminis-trative role has been cut. But the charity declined to comme by the Secretary General Liam O'Dwyer's department but some sources fear international opera-tions will be reduced to a shell, and some accounts are being handed over to their home countries.
A spokesperson said its interna-tional work will continue under Mr O'Dwyer and 'an experienced inter-national staff member' and they will 'support' projects in Indonesia, Syria, Gaza and Nepal.
Mr O'Dwyer's salary of €95,000 per year is not being cut as part of the restructuring plan, nor are any salaries The charity sought to quell reports of its difficulties in recent months, telling of a restructuring plan but sources say this was a 'smokescreen' to cover much deeper legacy issues which date back several years. Mr Roche, whose redundancy was sought more than a month ago, is still listed as its international head on its website, and Mr Ryan is also still listed as a board member. A previous head of international developments, Noel Wardick, has exposed financial management and governance issues on an anony-mous blog but the charity took legal action against Google and UPC to find out who was behind the blog and he was consequently dismissed in 2010 for gross misconduct. Mr Wardick came forward without a court order being secured. Among his concerns was how €162,000 in donations for Asian tsunami vic-tims remained in a Tipperary bank account for more than three years.
Two years later, the Public Accounts Committee heard the charity's board and head office were unaware, for three years, of 49 accounts containing €214,000 for the 2005 tsunami appeal.
The charity confirmed this week that €17,562 is still in that fund.
Yesterday's scheduled meeting lasted several hours. The blinds were drawn after they were alerted to a media presence outside.
State funding, as allocated by the Department of Defence, has been cut from €869,000 to €730,000 this year. The balance across its numer-ous restricted accounts, largely for international appeals, is €689,420 and the head office holds €932,244 in current and deposit accounts.
`This current State grant is not sufficient to support the Irish Red Cross central support services, particularly in relation to compli-ance requirements that are wel-comed but costly for all charitable voluntary organisations,' said a spokesperson. The charity receives no Irish Aid funding but is in talks over a possible project this year.
In its 2016 financial accounts €1,514,000 was listed across a number of restricted funds. These included €326,000 in a Nepal fund, and a note on the accounts stated that discussions were ongoing to
‘€162k of donations in account for three years’ Mr O’Dwyer’s €95k salary is not being reduced
release those funds after 'local difficulties'. The current balance in this account is €276,334.
Donations to its Syria account fund rise slightly to €117,992. A sum of €157,000 was in the Migra-tion Crisis fund -just €33,400 is left in this account. Much of those funds were raised after an appeal when the body of three-year-old Alan Kurdi washed up in Turkey.
An Irish Red Cross spokesperson said: 'The challenges facing the Irish Red Cross include the general decline in fundraising income cur-rently affecting the charity sector, the cost of compliance and regula-tion, the recent increase in insur-ance as well as safeguarding and data protection costs. This is not unique to this organisation and is a challenge which the board of direc-tors takes very seriously.'