The National Council for the Blind of Ireland (NCBI) welcomes the recent announcement of a consultative forum on the regulation of charities in Ireland.  In common with the majority of significant Irish charities, NCBI has been asking various governments for years to build a framework that both supports and regulates Irish charities, and welcomes the consultative process now embarked upon.

Des Kenny, Chief Executive of NCBI expressed his hope that the process would be completed saying “We never seem to get past the consultation phase. This is the third exercise of its type during the last 15 years but it has never passed beyond this stage to real legislative change.  NCBI sincerely hopes that the relevant authorities will master the implementation of this change which has been sought by Irish charities for over three decades.

NCBI has been working over the past several years towards publishing annual accounts which contain detailed information that give more information on the cost/operation ratios of the charity which is also registered as a limited company.  NCBI now makes all of the schedules to its accounts available when filing annual statutory returns to the companies office.

We agree that greater regulation is required to ensure that charities such as NCBI who are audited annually and publish a full set of accounts, can give a guarantee that they are conforming to best practice.”