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Updated at 1.56pm
TRANSACTIONS IN EXCESS of €60,000 were not being correctly reported in the accounts of a LGBT advocacy charity, the outgoing CEO has said.
The revelations are also due to be raised at the Public Accounts Committee.
Áine Duggan reported her own organisation, the Gay and Lesbian Equality Network (Glen), to the Charities Regulator after a number of financial irregularities were discovered.
Glen’s executive board said in a statement yesterday that it is satisfied that “all grants received have been used for the intended purpose and has no reason to suspect there has been any misappropriation of fund”.
Speaking to RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Duggan said that issues were of “grave concern”, and that any CEO would have a responsibility to act on them.
“I would like to be able to stand up and say, ‘I can absolutely one hundred percent stand over a statement that there was no misappropriation’, unfortunately I can’t”, she said.
Nobody can, and that’s why the audit is so important and I think that it’s really important that we let the audit run its course. The reason we brought in independent auditors was to assert that for us and my hope is that when their work is done they will be able to assert that firmly for us.
Duggan became CEO of the charity in October 2016 and tendered her resignation a number of weeks ago. She explained that she discovered the financial irregularities “very early on”, and that the organisation didn’t have any qualified accounts preparing the books.
“There were transactions in excess of €60,000 that were not being reported in the management accounts.
That would be a concern in and of itself for any nonprofit organization but it was a sort of deeper concern because there were a number of transactions in there that the board was unaware of including spending on political campaign and clearly an indication of spending on credit cards.
In some instances you can definitely see that people got into a habit of doing things without necessarily thinking about it and and that was all behavior that needed to be corrected.
Duggan explained that certain transactions involved did not appear on the management accounts, but do appear on “this other sort of side account which is called the debtors page that the organisation had gotten into the pratice of using over a number of years”.
All of this obviously predates me. The use of these of financial transactions off-the-book, so to speak, goes back I think almost a decade and obviously the principals who would have been around at the time and who would have been involved in the transactions would be better placed to give more detailed account of why that was was happening and why it was the case.
Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald said she intends to raise the issues at the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee after the Easter break.
“I am aware of the tremendous work that Glen does in the LGBT community and we would all like to see that continued and expanded,” she said in a statement.
But we cannot have a situation in which there is uncertainty about elements of the organisations finances.
The financial issues were first revealed by The Sunday Business Post yesterday. The paper detailed, among the issues under investigation, are the use of a company credit card for private purposes, poor budget management, the use of funds to support non-Glen-related political campaigns, and data protection issues.
GLEN / TwitterStatement by the board of GLEN.
— GLEN (@glenLGBT) April 16, 2017
Read the full statement here: https://t.co/kViS5qkIb9 pic.twitter.com/IrC095BFt8
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Charity begins at home they say, well the homes of the senior executives of the charity sector really. Is there any sector of Irish life that is just not utterly rotten?
Well, this appears to be a non-story. Clearly, there has been no misappropriation of funds; instead simply, a misapplication of how the accounts were recorded. Reassuring to see an organisation working within the parameters of honesty, even if lacking in their approach to correct accounting procedure.
Paul these are gays so lay off
@George Hogan: Seriously? – CEO appointed, is concerned about the books, call for an audit – leaves “by mutual consent” within 6 months while there is a clear gulf between what the outgoing CEO asserts and the remaining executive states?
Doesn’t matter how firmly one believes in the cause, something rotten is going on, and if it is the case, surely everyone who advocates sexual equality would want this examined, because if money was misappropriated, it is the cause which has suffered.
Better add a grey area to the rainbow flag..
There were huge celebration that same sex people were allowed to marry as known as the equivalent referendum, why do we have finance support groups these days?
@Jho Harris: good question. . Surely it’s not needed anymore?
@Jho Harris: there are plenty of reasons for its continuance. Check out their website. I don’t believe it was setup for marriage equality solely.
@Peter McGlynn: I’ve had a look at their website and I still don’t see a reason for the charity ..
@Suzie Sunshine: Leo needs it for his campaign to become the leader.
@Suzie Sunshine: Domestic abuse is illegal so lets get rid of womens shelters, child abuse is illegal so guess we dont need barnardos anymore.
@Nayrb Yelahw: silly comparisons there .. both are abuse .. gay and lesbian people have equal rights so why the need for a charity ?
@Nayrb Yelahw:
Is it only women who are the subjects of domestic abuse?
@Suzie Sunshine: The comparison does not suit your agenda. Lets get rid of disability charities as disabled people have protection in legislation.
@joe. I never suggested it was a womens only issue.
@Peter McGlynn: Any fight they want to take on is not exclusive to being LGBT regardless what it says on their website. If non gays banned LGBT from accessing their services there would be outcry. Try to keep perspective please. We also have IMI getting huge amount of funding which a chunk is used trawling Europe for migrants to come here, all this costs money
The executive board is happy that there was no misappropriation of funds but the CEO cannot stand over a statement saying that there was no misappropriation of funds. Definitely a disconnect here. The 60K has gone somewhere. There’s something very queer about all of this.
@Sean @114: her words specifically state TRANSACTIONS in excess of 60k. It would be interesting to see how much the improperly accounted monies total up to.
Where is the boundary between the warmhearted charitable impulse and the cool calculation of professionalism? I think we need an up-to-date law governing the financial and advertising operations of registered charities.
Someone’s taking the mickey!!
Surprised that this article like the previous one did not mention the bullying claims, the freezing of the funds by the HSE and the use of money by the former co-Chair for his Seanad campaign. http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/gay-rights-charity-glen-hit-by-bullying-and-financial-investigations-1.3050746
@BrianMcB: All Charities should be Transparent in its accounts , Schools Church , Disability organisations and the like they should be delisted as a charity until total transparency on monies donated , grants , Lotto or HSE funded . CRC, Console , Rehab …….. confidentiality around public and Charity monies , Is an indication that someone is hiding something . It is hard enough to get funds and fundraise let’s enforce regulation . Well done this CEO she has principals and believes in good Governance .
Comments have been deleted. No surprise there from the Journal.
@George Hogan: if expenses have classified as debtors that is a serious misstatement. It gives the impression that money is available as an asset once the debtor pays up.
@Ewan Duffy: Yep keeping it off the books.
It is so disappointing to see this in an organisation that is so badly needed. Aine Duggan absolutely did the right thing in exposing what appears to be a culture of misappropriation of funds, it was so easily spotted when she took over. Those that allowed GLEN too descend to this mess need to be called to account.
It’s been a total c0ck up?
This is straight up robbery…..
Wow, my gut feeling would lean towards fraud. Credit card spending is hidden by offsetting the reducing cash\bank account with a fictional debtor\receivable account. Has every transaction been traced through the credit card company and supplier companies’ own control accounts to find out exactly what these items are?
Something not straight about this.
The plot sickens. .duh..duh..duuuh..
If you wonder why everything in this country if rotten to the core. Just flick through the comments here and you’ll see why
may he/she /non sex person wanted a sex change!
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