Strengthening the SIPO law to make religions accountable

Michael Nugent

Amnesty International Ireland is refusing to obey the law on funding of political purposes. They are refusing to return an illegal donation from America to help to repeal the eighth amendment.

Atheist Ireland has published a report arguing that Amnesty is mistaken in taking this position, both ethically and practically.

Atheist Ireland's fundraising is also restricted by this law. Despite this, Atheist Ireland supports the law and argues that it should be strengthened not subverted.

The SIPO law exists to ensure that good arguments can be heard because of their merits, and not get drowned out by those who happen to have the wealthiest supporters.

Here is a link to the full report.

Sections 4 and 5 are the parts that are of primary relevance to this board. They argue why and how the law should be strengthened to include religions within its accountability, by shifting the test of accountability from political donations to political spending.

gctest50

And Iona and friends have never received a cent ?

Or is the other side all powered by

Wealthy, pizza-empire-owning grannies in Donegal


http://bocktherobber.com

Michael Nugent

Well, that is the key argument in the report.

That the test for being accountable under the law should be changed from donations to spending, so that it is harder for religious bodies to avoid registering.

gctest50

That'd be for the best, " by their own book " it's ok to lie if it furthers the glooooooria or something

Peregrinus

Michael Nugent wrote: »

. . . Sections 4 and 5 are the parts that are of primary relevance to this board. They argue why and how the law should be strengthened to include religions within its accountability, by shifting the test of accountability from political donations to political spending.

Is there a conceptual problem here? If you have a body that engages in both political campaigning and other activities, it seems straightforward to oblige them to declare their spending on campaigning, but I'm not sure that there can be a meaningful obligation to require them to declare how that spending was funded. Much of the expenditure may come from general funds, raised from a variety of sources which, at the time it was raised, was not committed to any one particular purpose of the organisation. If the organisation raises substantial funds, and makes its own decisions about how to allocate those funds across its various activities, objectives, etc, then I don't think you will normally be able to point to particular funders beyond the organisation as funding any particular activity that the organisation undertakes.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding something - it wouldn't be the first time - but I'm not sure how you see this working? If an organisation exeeds the spending threshold on political campaigning, does it then have to disclose all its sources of funding for all its expenditure for all purposes? It doesn't seem to be that that would be particularly useful or relevant information. Or does it just have to disclose the sources of funding for its political campaigning expenditure? In which case, how does that work in practice?

Michael Nugent

Peregrinus wrote: »

Is there a conceptual problem here? If you have a body that engages in both political campaigning and other activities, it seems straightforward to oblige them to declare their spending on campaigning, but I'm not sure that there can be a meaningful obligation to require them to declare how that spending was funded. Much of the expenditure may come from general funds, raised from a variety of sources which, at the time it was raised, was not committed to any one particular purpose of the organisation. If the organisation raises substantial funds, and makes its own decisions about how to allocate those funds across its various activities, objectives, etc, then I don't think you will normally be able to point to particular funders beyond the organisation as funding any particular activity that the organisation undertakes.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding something - it wouldn't be the first time - but I'm not sure how you see this working? If an organisation exeeds the spending threshold on political campaigning, does it then have to disclose all its sources of funding for all its expenditure for all purposes? It doesn't seem to be that that would be particularly useful or relevant information. Or does it just have to disclose the sources of funding for its political campaigning expenditure? In which case, how does that work in practice?

This is roughly how it works.

1. There are two aspects to what the law is trying to do:

(a) Find out who funds political activities of an organisation, so that it is transparent who is influencing political decision making; and

(b) Place limits on the maximum donation, for political purposes, that an organisation can take in any one year from any one donor.

2. The law does not seek to find out the donors, or limit the donations, of money given for non-political purposes. This typically includes general funds and membership fees etc. You have to open a separate bank account for political donations, and it is only that bank account that SIPO will monitor.

3. The next question is: who has to register? The answer is political parties, election candidates, and third parties. Third Parties are people or organisations that are not political parties or election candidates, but that seek to influence elections or political decisions between elections.

4. The next question is: how do you know that you are a Third Party? The law says that you are a Third Party if you accept a donation for political purposes of over €100 in any calendar year. Once you meet that test, you must register as a Third party and are subject to the limitations of (a) and (b) above.

5. The problem arises in meeting the test in point 4 above. Because the test is that the money is given for a political purpose, the test lies in the intent of the donor. Because that is hard to prove, many politically active groups simply declare that they have accepted no donations for political purposes, and it hard to go behind that claim.

6. The solution to this that SIPO has proposed, and which Atheist Ireland supports, is that the test for having to register should be that you spend a certain amount in a year on for a political purpose (say €5,000), not that you have accepted a certain donation for political purposes. That would be harder to evade and easier to prove.

Peregrinus

Thanks for this.

So the consequence would be that, e.g., if an organisation spends more than €5,000 for political purposes it must register as a third party, which then means (a) that it must disclose the donations it receives for political purposes, and (b) those donations are capped at a certain level. And this is enforced by requiring the organisation to maintain a separate bank account for receiving political donations, which SIPO will monitor.

Obviously, you could have an organisation that engages in political spending, but it largely self-funds this from its own resources, or funds it from general donations which are not tied to political purposes. (And my guess is that this would be the situation for most of the larger churches.) But that's OK; if we know that, e.g. €10,000 of Catholic Church political expenditure is financed by donations routed through the designated account for political donations, then we know that the balance is funded by the church from its own resources. Therefore, we know who's funding it, which is what we are trying to achieve.

Michael Nugent

Yes, that's the change we are seeking. With the proviso that it doesn't seem to be anywhere near the top of the Government's agenda.

The reason it is in the news now is that Amnesty, under the current law, is one of the groups that treats the law subjectively, and last week announced that it was refusing to give back a €137,000 political donation on unspecified human rights grounds.

silverharp

I remember when Amnesty used to be above reproach , it seems to be more a vehicle for personal advancement these days. If the law is enforced Colm and the lads wont be laughing

smacl

Michael Nugent wrote: »

The law does not seek to find out the donors, or limit the donations, of money given for non-political purposes.

What is the test applied here which defines whether a given purpose is or is not political? Do organisations that are involved in political and apolitical activities need to get their donors so specify which type of activity their donations are going toward and account for such money accordingly? It seems like an accounting nightmare.

recedite

smacl wrote: »

It seems like an accounting nightmare.

It should not be too onerous for a lobbying organisation, and after all it would only kick in if they were spending more than €5K on the lobbying.

Even individual persons such as tradesmen who are self employed will be quite familiar with the concept of having separate business and personal bank accounts, and also to separately apportioning a % of costs such as motoring, light and heat etc..

Michael Nugent

smacl wrote: »

What is the test applied here which defines whether a given purpose is or is not political?

In short, if it is aimed at influencing the outcome of an election or referendum, or promoting or procuring a particular outcome in relation to a policy or policies or functions of the Government or any public authority.

smacl wrote: »

Do organisations that are involved in political and apolitical activities need to get their donors so specify which type of activity their donations are going toward and account for such money accordingly?

To oversimplify, yes.

smacl wrote: »

It seems like an accounting nightmare.

It isn't. Atheist Ireland has no problems doing it.

Peregrinus

smacl wrote: »

It seems like an accounting nightmare.

Not a nightmare. Organisations with multiple purposes and multiple sources of funding would typically be doing it anyway. If, say, the Red Cross launches an appeal to provide relief for this natural disaster or refugees from that conflict, they'll be needing to account for the proceeds of that appeal separately from their other donations and income, if only because they would suffer reputational damage if it emerged that the proceeds of special appeals were going into general funds which might be spent on purposes other than those repreresented to the donors.

The way I see it is this; under the current law, churches and others are taking the view that they are not "third parties" because they do not receive donations for "political purposes". even though they may in fact spend money for political purposes. Therefore they do not register.

Under the amended law, they would have to register, because they spend money for political purposes. But presumably (unless the pattern of donations changes) they would still take the view that they are not receiving donations for political purposes, and thus they would register, but report receiving zero political donations.

What would be achieved? Possibly two things:

1. The amended law might require not only that these agencies register as third parties, but that they report the level of their political spending, so we would know how much they were spending on political purposes, even if we still didn't know very much about how it was funded.

2. Once they're registered, it might be that the SIPO authorities are in a better position to audit/inspect/test their claims the donations they receive are not earmarked for political purposes.

smacl

Michael Nugent wrote: »

To oversimplify, yes.

Thanks for the reply. While I get all this in principle, if such an organisation's major costs include staff salary, rent, light, heat, transport, phones, etc... e.g. normal running costs of any organisation, I'd assume that every staff member would be required to keep a detailed time sheet of their daily activities such that costs can be allocated against either political or apolitical activity and paid for out of the matching account. Basically, you'd need to run every activity as a fully budgeted and costed project, where all costs and times could be externally audited. You also have the complication that an activity that began as an apolitical one could become political over time. I'd guess with a decent accountant, financial smarts and complicit donors you could run rings around all of this. Only sayin'...

recedite

smacl wrote: »

I'd guess with a decent accountant, financial smarts and complicit donors you could run rings around all of this. Only sayin'...

As with any kind of self assessment, there is a certain presumption of honesty. If there was a sense that an organisation was deliberately concealing the truth in any way, then its likely they would be monitored a lot more closely than before.

smacl

recedite wrote: »

As with any kind of self assessment, there is a certain presumption of honesty. If there was a sense that an organisation was deliberately concealing the truth in any way, then its likely they would be monitored a lot more closely than before.

What, like Iona?

recedite

smacl wrote: »

What, like Iona?

What dishonesty are you implying?

Hotblack Desiato

silverharp wrote: »

I remember when Amnesty used to be above reproach , it seems to be more a vehicle for personal advancement these days.

Translation - 'They are saying and doing things I disagree with'.

recedite

There is a lot of hypocrisy in evidence here.

Iona are saying and doing things that many in this forum would disagree with, but they are honestly complying with the law.

Amnesty are saying and doing things many in this forum would agree with, but are not honestly complying with the law.

Lets call a spade a spade.

smacl

recedite wrote: »

There is a lot of hypocrisy in evidence here.

Iona are saying and doing things that many in this forum would disagree with, but they are honestly complying with the law.

Amnesty are saying and doing things many in this forum would agree with, but are not honestly complying with the law.

Lets call a spade a spade.

Not so sure Rec, from the IT article linked previously;

IT wrote:

Last year, Lolek received donations totalling €273,042 and had boosted its cash reserves by 20 percent to €304,032 at the end of 2016.

There is no breakdown in the accounts of the source of the donations.

So assuming they're working within the letter of the law this didn't arrive directly to them as a single donation from a foreign investor. All that suggests to me is they have convoluted mechanisms for receiving money from unknown unnamed sources. Honesty isn't a word I'd use here, as dishonest and illegal are not the same thing.

expectationlost

Michael Nugent wrote: »

Amnesty International Ireland is refusing to obey the law on funding of political purposes. They are refusing to return an illegal donation from America to help to repeal the eighth amendment.

Atheist Ireland has published a report arguing that Amnesty is mistaken in taking this position, both ethically and practically.

Atheist Ireland's fundraising is also restricted by this law. Despite this, Atheist Ireland supports the law and argues that it should be strengthened not subverted.

The SIPO law exists to ensure that good arguments can be heard because of their merits, and not get drowned out by those who happen to have the wealthiest supporters.

Here is a link to the full report.

Sections 4 and 5 are the parts that are of primary relevance to this board. They argue why and how the law should be strengthened to include religions within its accountability, by shifting the test of accountability from political donations to political spending.

I think Amnesty got caught out here by the OSF leak and Educate Equality by the Humanists business model but Im trying to understand Amnestys arguement about human rights versus politics.

Im very warying of large donations from overseas or from Irish citizens but so many NGOs depend on them... has all the money given to ICCL and Amensty etc over years potentionally been illegal, its probable we wouldn't have had the 'childrens rights' referendum, the Marriage referendum or a possible abortion referendum without Chuck Feeneys funding.

I gather their main arguements in defence is 1. free association and 2. that they are working on human rights norms that the government has already signed up to so it can't be politics, its just making sure what the gov itself has already promised would happen is happening. I think Atheist Ireland often makes the arguement that Ireland has already signed up these human rights norms, in relations to the changes it wants (rather then in defending its fundraising practices).

I presume various religious groups would also claim to working towards ensuring human rights.

Peregrinus

smacl wrote: »

Thanks for the reply. While I get all this in principle, if such an organisation's major costs include staff salary, rent, light, heat, transport, phones, etc... e.g. normal running costs of any organisation, I'd assume that every staff member would be required to keep a detailed time sheet of their daily activities such that costs can be allocated against either political or apolitical activity and paid for out of the matching account. Basically, you'd need to run every activity as a fully budgeted and costed project, where all costs and times could be externally audited. You also have the complication that an activity that began as an apolitical one could become political over time. I'd guess with a decent accountant, financial smarts and complicit donors you could run rings around all of this. Only sayin'...

I think there's two ways you could approach this.

One is to treat fixed costs - the staff, the premises, the power bill - as not being attributable to any particular activity; they're just a foundation that needs to be constructed before any activity at all can be undertaken. On this basis the organisation's "political expenditure" is the extra money that they spend, that they wouldn't have spent if they hadn't taken on a particular political project. So, any extra printing, advertising, etc, undertaken specifically in connection with this process. Any extra staff hired to work on this project, or the staff costs of existing staff diverted to work on this project.

The other is to take the fixed costs and apportion them across all of the organisation's activities. So, 60% (say) of our work is not "political" as defined for SIPO purposes and 40% is? OK, then 40% of our fixed cost base gets included in the figure we quote in our SIPO return.

You can make arguments in support of either approach, and different approaches may be appropriate for different organisations. An organisation that does largely non-political work but, say, issues a public statement at ever election calling on politicians to be mindful of X, Y and Z could reasonably say that their only political expenditure is the cost to them of the amount of time and effort that they spend preparing that statement. Conversely a campaigning organisation that engages in both political and non-political campaigns, and does a lot of both, might more appropriately apportion all its costs across its various activities.

This is an accounting matter, and the question the accountants will ask themselves is whether the accounts prepared by the organisation show a true and fair view of the organisation's affairs, and whether they comply with any legal regulatory requirements. Presumably, if the law is amended as suggested to require disclosure of political expenditure, there'll be regulations defining "political expenditure" and there can be rules in there for what the appropriate way to identify political expenditure is. To the extent that there are no rules, or there are rules but they don't cover a particular case, then it's back to looking at what the accounting standards (issued by the professional accounting bodies) may require, to the general principles of accountancy, and to the true and fair view.

This isn't new stuff. There's lots of regulated activities where accounts have to be published and/or filed, and there's regulation and/or professional standards about how those accounts must be prepared and what they must show, and this gets discussed at some length between the regulators, the accountancy bodies and the representatives of the regulated businesses. And, yeah, it can be a bit blurry around the edges, and many things are matters of judgment rather than of clear and unambiguous rules. But no system is perfect, and it would be wrong to assume that the organisations concerned can "run rings" around the regulatory requirements, to the point where you might as well not bother having any requirements at all.

Peregrinus

[QUOTE=smacl;105576901So assuming they're working within the letter of the law this didn't arrive directly to them as a single donation from a foreign investor. All that suggests to me is they have convoluted mechanisms for receiving money from unknown unnamed sources . . . [/QUOTE]
There is a simpler explanation, which is that the €273,042 figure represents a largish number of relatively small donations, and we have no reason for assuming that any particular fraction of them came from overseas, and therefore no reason to hypothese "convoluted mechanisms" for concealing donations.

Have you any reason at all to think that they received a donation which they were bound to disclose but nevertheless did not disclose?

smacl

Peregrinus wrote: »

Have you any reason at all to think that they received a donation which they were bound to disclose but nevertheless did not disclose?

I shouldn't have to need to suspect anyone. If donations from certain destinations above specified amounts are prohibited by SIPO, surely the onus here would be on Iona to be fully transparent as to where all and any donations come from to demonstrate that they are in fact above board. As it is we (the public) don't know where this money has come from, so while it is most probably all above board legally, a lack of transparency makes it ethically suspicious. While you might say this is a matter between Iona's auditor and the Revenue, I would personally suspect foreign funding channelled indirectly via local 3rd parties. I doubt I'm alone in this speculation and it appears to be a matter that Lolek are less than keen to discuss.

Peregrinus

I'm not abreast of the SIPO legislation, but isn't Iona obliged to identify donations above the limit from foreign sources? So if they publish a figure for donations and identify none above the limit from foreign sources, they are saying that they received no such donations. There is no lack of transparency there, that I can see.

What is not transparent is who there small and/or local donors are, but they are not obliged to be transparent about those. The SIPO regime doesn't seek transparency with respect to those donors.

It seems to me that your attitude to Iona is vaguely analogous to demanding that I produce receipts for all my possessions to prove that none of them are stolen. When you have evidence that I have stolen goods in my possession, come and talk to me. Until then, you can take yourself and your transparency elsewhere!

smacl

Peregrinus wrote: »

I'm not abreast of the SIPO legislation, but isn't Iona obliged to identify donations above the limit from foreign sources? So if they publish a figure for donations and identify none above the limit from foreign sources, they are saying that they received no such donations. There is no lack of transparency there, that I can see.

I'd imagine this rather depends on whether the donor is looking for visibility or happier to stay anonymous. The former seems to be the case with the OSF and Amnesty. In the latter case, if I was a foreign donor wishing to donate to an Irish organisation, I'd simply transfer the funds to a locally complicit business first (e.g. for services) and then have that business (or businesses or individuals) donate the money onwards. Given the rise of technologies such as cryptos, moving money across borders is quite a bit simpler than it used to be so all you need really are the funds and the will to proceed.

What is not transparent is who there small and/or local donors are, but they are not obliged to be transparent about those. The SIPO regime doesn't seek transparency with respect to those donors.

Quite so, the SIPO regime doesn't demand transparency, Iona doesn't offer it, hence there is no transparency. As per my previous post, this is most likely entirely legal, but all that tells us is that there have been no large direct foreign donations. Paint me cynical, but if I see any lobbying group receiving significant funding from an unknown source, I become openly suspicious.

It seems to me that your attitude to Iona is vaguely analogous to demanding that I produce receipts for all my possessions to prove that none of them are stolen. When you have evidence that I have stolen goods in my possession, come and talk to me. Until then, you can take yourself and your transparency elsewhere!

Interesting attitude. If I ran a lobbying organisation and there was public speculation in the media as to how it was funded, I'd be very keen to provide transparency above and beyond minimum legal requirements. I don't think the analogy of comparing a lobbying organisation such as Iona to a private individual stands up particularly well, but if you wanted to go down that path I'd suggest that a better comparison would be looking for proof of ownership when buying something from a third party. Iona are trying to sell us a world view, but who's world view is it, who paid for it?

Peregrinus

Smacl, the lobby groups all receive the significant bulk of their funding from undisclosed sources, don't they? Why are we picking on Iona here? (Apart from the fact that it's fun, of course.)

For what it's worth, I'd favour a maximally transparent regime, in which all donations (above a trivial level, maybe) must be disclosed, and I'd make no distinction between donations from overseas sources and those from domestic sources. I think they're both equally worrisome, and potentially corrupting.

But, in the absence of such a regime, I see no basis for a particular denunciation of Iona.

smacl

Peregrinus wrote: »

Why are we picking on Iona here? (Apart from the fact that it's fun, of course.)

Of course because it's fun, and it panders to my own personal biases. To me though it does provide a certain context to the issue of Amnesty which makes me wonder whether they've arrived at this juncture through naivety, belligerence or something else entirely. I don't doubt that with a bit of effort they could have snuck this money in under the radar so to speak. I find the holier than thou attitude of Atheist Ireland unconvincing and wonder if they got the offer of a hundred grand of funding from an external source how they'd proceed.

For what it's worth, I'd favour a maximally transparent regime, in which all donations (above a trivial level, maybe) must be disclosed, and I'd make no distinction between donations from overseas sources and those from domestic sources. I think they're both equally worrisome, and potentially corrupting.

Agreed 100%

But, in the absence of such a regime, I see no basis for a particular denunciation of Iona.

Maybe, but they're certainly the first lobby group that come to mind in the context of A&A and obscure sources of revenue. Plus, of course, I don't like them nor the way they lawyer up at the vaguest criticism. These things do not say 'Trustworthy' to me, and to be honest I'd guess they've done more damage to the Catholic church in Ireland than Atheist Ireland is ever likely to.

recedite

smacl wrote: »

Of course because it's fun, and it panders to my own personal biases. To me though it does provide a certain context to the issue of Amnesty which makes me wonder whether they've arrived at this juncture through naivety, belligerence or something else entirely.

So you have picked on Iona, which is SIPO compliant and presumed to be acting honestly, and compared them to Amnesty which refused to register its lobbying with SIPO, or declare its large donation from George Soros, or hand that €137K back, or else spend it on some non-political purpose instead such as helping the homeless.

One organisation is compliant with the law, and one is openly flouting it.

I don't doubt that with a bit of effort they could have snuck this money in under the radar so to speak. I find the holier than thou attitude of Atheist Ireland unconvincing and wonder if they got the offer of a hundred grand of funding from an external source how they'd proceed.

They did try to sneak it in by saying it was not for political purposes, but they got caught.
Atheist Ireland, on the other hand, is on record as saying they turned away large donations in order to remain compliant with the law.

As a voluntary organisation, Atheist Ireland has limited resources, and part of our work has a political purpose. We always ask the SIPO office about the status of any potential donations, in order to ensure that we remain within the law.
We have turned down large offers of political donations because they breach this law. Another person wanted to make a large donation towards our crowdfunding for Freedom of Information Act requests about the impact of religion in ETB schools. We had to tell them that we could only accept such a donation for non-political purposes.

smacl

recedite wrote: »

One organisation is compliant with the law, and one is openly flouting it.

I agree, and this is something I've already noted. Now if you re-read Michael's opening post you'll see the following;

Michael Nugent wrote: »

The SIPO law exists to ensure that good arguments can be heard because of their merits, and not get drowned out by those who happen to have the wealthiest supporters.

With respect to recent debates that have become politicised such as repealing the 8th, marriage equality, etc... how well resourced would you consider the Iona Institute to be, and where exactly do you think those resources are derived from? That they've managed to stay within the letter of the law seems probable, that they spend a lot of other people's money to push their agenda seems equally probably yet we don't know quite who these people are. Interestingly, the SIPO register of public donors lists who the donors are but not who they've donated to nor how much.

Nick Park

Peregrinus wrote: »

What is not transparent is who there small and/or local donors are, but they are not obliged to be transparent about those. The SIPO regime doesn't seek transparency with respect to those donors.

Such transparency could only be in very general terms (eg number of donors, average amount given, how many donors were in Ireland). An organisation disclosing anything more detailed would, I believe, get hammered for data protection breaches.