Trust in charities has been broken among the public
I write this open letter concerning the front page photograph used by your Newspaper in regard to the Bus Strike caused by drivers associated to Bus Éireann.
Countless people rely on buses to get into and out of town to collect our Social Welfare pension and entitlements, do some shopping and mingle with the rest of civilisation, especially when you live in the middle of nowhere and have no other forms of transport to get about.
As this indefinite bus strike continues to take its toll on both the population and the tourism industry then the Accountants’ and Management of Bus Éireann might decide once and for all to call an Extraordinary General Meeting and dissolve the Company once and for all, and put “these drivers” on the dole queues and then we will see how the shoe on the other foot fits?
It’s about time, the travelling public came FIRST and not the drivers, some drivers’ I believe are getting triple pay for working Sunday hours, and when the strike was happening on Sunday, you didn’t see any of the driver’s on the picket line way past 7pm, even though they should be.
I really feel sorry for tourists flying into this welcome country of ours, who have limited resources and need to travel on buses that only Bus Éireann services, then these tourists are well and truly down or up the Garavouge without a paddle, where is the Cead Mile Failte Romhat to these tourists, not a great PR exercise for Failte Ireland?
I live in Strandhill, and I am on the Back to Education Allowance of € 188.00 per week, I certainly cannot afford a taxi of € 20 per trip to get me into college for 9 am lectures into the Institute of Technology Sligo and back home again.
Would Bus Éireann provide me with the taxi fare for not providing me with the service.
I was one person along with many thousands of people that marched against water charges in Dublin on Saturday 8th. Sadly most of the Irish papers did not report this the next day in their papers and those who did only gave a footnote to the great event.
Which brings me to ask are our Irish newspapers being censored or are they biased in their reporting?
Is the editor being politically one sided when anti- government protests take place in Ireland?
How free is the press and how much control does the government have on the press, radio and TV?
In my opinion our news media be the TV, radio or papers must always be neutral and be seen to take no side when reporting political matters as that is the meaning of a free press otherwise we are heading down a very dangerous path that could be damaging to democratic values as press freedom becomes endangered, to an invisible elite who would be pulling strings in the background which would result in a public being given misinformation.
Instead of being fully informed and citizens not trusting the papers anymore as society moves towards totalitarianism as we rely on big brother and his brainwashing tactics and George Orwell’s book 1984 and Animal Farm becomes a living reality as our minds melt and we become robots to the system. Dear Madam, Reading the ‘ Monday Interview ‘’ by Eilish O’ Regan [ Irish Independent April 3] charity regulator John Farrelly said that new regulation will force all charities to produce full accounts detailing how they spend their money.
This comes in the wake of revelations that a growing number of charities, which are registered companies, are only filing abridged accounts which give limited financial information.
They do not disclose amounts paid in salaries and expenses or how much was spent in charitable purposes. The average management salary to a charity chief is about € 60,000 he said. In the wake of the Console charity debacle last year and others in recent times, even though the public outcry has somewhat dimmed, trust in charities has been badly shaken, as up to 30 tip- offs a month continue to come to the regulator with concerns about some form of fundraising activity or other.
It transpires that in excess of 300 charities have some allegations against them by concerned callers Mr. Farrelly said.
He also went on to say that he has a simple ‘’ motto’’- of trust and then verify. We cannot rely on peoples word - we have to look beneath. While most do good work, you have to be cynical, the charity watchdog said.
Recent checks carried out have discovered fraud in some cases, and in others where trustees were related.
I am very clear that a charity and charitable purpose is too precious to be lost by a few. The trustees need to be informed and engaged, otherwise the charity is at risk the regulator said. Charities countrywide do so much good work and are a lifeline to so many very vulnerable people. Even though successive governments have farmed out this work to the charity sector, over many years, and in some cases continue to under fund them.
It is imperative that they are fully transparent in all their dealings, in order to try and restore complete trust in them by the general public.
Once trust is broken by a person or a charitable organisation, it is almost impossible to restore it back to full health again.