The Wheel and The Charities Institute Ireland respond to the General Scheme of the Charities Amendment Bill 2022
On Wednesday 6 July, a briefing was jointly hosted by The Wheel and The Charities Institute Ireland in response to the General Scheme of the Charities Amendment Bill 2022 published in April of this year. The following day these two organisations, with legal input form Mason, Hayes & Curran LLP, made a joint submission to the Joint Committee on Social Protection, Community and Rural Development and the Islands in response to the General Scheme of the Charities (Amendment) Bill 2022 (the “Bill”). The General Scheme comprises the draft heads of Bill which will undergo scrutiny before the Joint Oireachtas Committee before the text of the Bill is finalised.
Currently, the principal primary legislation governing the operation of charities in Ireland is the Charities Act 2009, which provides for a definition of charities, their operation and reporting requirements, and also the establishment of the Charities Regulatory Authority.
However, concern arose in relation to the non-applicability of existing legislation to charities that are incorporated due to the introduction of the Companies Act 2014. As things currently stand, no registered charity that is incorporated is required to prepare and submit an annual statement of accounts to the Charities Regulator (42% of charities currently). This, amongst other issues, is addressed in the Amendment Bill of 2022.
The Bill proposes to address a series of issues, including:
- Strengthening the powers of the Charities Regulator in certain situations
- Introducing new regulations and financial reporting requirements for charities
- Crystalising the duties of trustees and placing these on a statutory footing
- Introducing new offences for charities and trustees
- Giving the Charities Regulator (rather than the High Court) powers to remove charities from the register under section 4
Under the proposed Bill, the advancement of Human Rights is finally set to become a charitable purpose. The Irish Government deliberately excluded the advancement of human rights from the statutory definition of a charitable purpose in the 2009 Act, an exclusion that set Ireland apart from its common law neighbours. In its 2015 Report on the Review of the Charities Act 2009, following expert evidence, the Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality expressly recommended the amendment of the 2009 Act to include human rights as a charitable purpose. This amendment would mean that organisations with specific references to human rights purposes in their objects clause will now be able (and required) to register as charities. Transition periods will operate to enable organisations working in the human rights space who are not registered as charities to register.
A link to the General Scheme of the Charities (Amendment) Bill 2022 can be found here