Peter McVerry Trust has 'financial issues'.

Don't need to be a tax accountant to understand basic English.

You see, I didn't say that. I offered a number of explanations. You have lumped alternative explanations into one and put them all together.

It may well have been incompetence on the part of PMVT rather than fraud and rather than Revenue being complicit. The auditors may have seen a letter from Revenue and taken it as face value, again through incompetence.

However, such a finding raises even more serious questions of the €50m a year poured into PMVT by the taxpayer. If they are so incompetent in accounting for Revenue, what trust can we have in their competence to manage €50m.

This is a very serious issue, there will be more revelations, somebody's head will have to roll.

Regardless of tax issues, we have to question if they are providing value for money. According to the revenue reported in their accounts and the numbers they provide shelter for, it works out at a cost of €2,200 per person per month.

There's no contradiction at all in being both a charity and significant business — why would there be? What is there in the notion of "charity" that confines charities and their activities to being insignificant?

It's not free. Community employment sponsor organisations - whether charities or not - do not pay the scheme workers, but they do have extensive obligations and commitments to the DSP that it costs them money to fulfil.

CE scheme sponsors have all the obligations (and liabilities) of employers, apart from the actual payment of wages - so, management; administration; insurance; supervision; training; direction; provision of equipment, resources and a place of work; duties of care and safety, etc. Plus, they have further obligations to provide training that conforms to quality standards, and to satisfy various DCP quality and audit standards.

"As far as you know" it's a gravy train for the charity but, be honest, that may not be very far at all. The truth is that it costs money — significant money — to be a sponsor of a CE scheme. Plus, charities are not-for-profit entities; any benefits they do receive go ultimately to the objects of the charity. That's kind of the point.

Cal's comment, to which I initially responded, is that charities "are significant businesses looking at their operations, turnover, and staff numbers". Well, he's right; a lot of charities are significant businesses. And they have the overheads of businesses.

The only difference between charities and other businesses is that charities do not pay a dividend to their owners. People who contribute to a charity do not expect to get anything in return, unlike people who buy shares in a company, who expect to get a dividend in return,

What makes you think that very little of this costs an employer anything to provide? Have you spoken to many employers? How do they manage to do all this at no cost?

I accept that people who need help and/,or want help need charities to be there but I would question where all the money actually goes.

How much is wasted?

How much is spent on salaries that could be reined in?

It seems no matter how many charities this country has the solutions to homelessness ect aren't really being dealt with.

Charities like this one allow the govt to dodge its responsibilities, firing money at various overlapping charities and hoping the problem goes away.

I wouldn't give a red cent to this crowd.

Well, the honours student would obtain and read their annual report. Just sayin'.

The one they removed from their site after this scandal broke? Where, pray tell, would the honour student find this now they’ve pulled it??

Good post

I am getting a little fed up having to produce links and evidence to back up everything I say, while you just post completely untrue statements.

Here are the most recent accounts on their own website.

In 2021, they received €41m from the government and raised another €11m in fundraising. Their total revenue was €53m, in line with the €50m I mentioned. Please stop posting untruths about PMVT.

Now, this is interesting. Can anyone spot the evidence that PMVT and their auditors don't have much of a clue about what is going on inside the charity?

Hint: Look at the 2020 figures in both statements and compare.

Donations and legacies are €16,030,805 in both statements, and other income is listed as €7,820,000 in both. However, the amount for income for charitable activities is shown as €32,601,692 in the 2020 accounts, but revised upwards to €36,428,442 in the 2021 accounts. Somehow, they forget about €4m when doing the accounts in 2020 that they later found and had to account for the next year. Sure, why would you bother looking after the taxpayer's money?

(And before, someone comes back and asks how I know it is €4m of the taxpayers money that they didn't account for at the time, it is all there in the accounts)

Not only that, but the board of the charity has questions to answer from these accounts. At the end of 2021, PMVT owed the taxman €5.7m in unpaid PAYE and PRSI, see note 16 of the accounts. The surplus for the year was €1.8m. Was anyone asking questions on the board in March 2022 about how they would be able to repay these taxes due????? Because they should have known about the problem then.

Their report states that they accommodate 2000 per night, have an annual income of €53 million and 506 core staff. Revenue equates to €2,200 per person accommodated per month.

They don't just accommodate people, they have health programmes, educational programs, counselling, etc.

My problem is with the charity, can't account properly, spends a fortune and makes the problem worse, etc.

Have you a cost analysis?

Does the government or agencies of the government provide the same services, do these cost less are they more efficient?

Whataboutery something else to deflect from the problems of the charity.

Do you have a vested interest? Do you work there? Because you are going out of your way to defend the charity.

I have asked some serious questions here. How did they miss €4m doing the 2020 accounts that they found again a year later? How come the board in March 2022 when signing off the accounts not realise that owing €5.7m in income tax when only having a surplus of €1.8m was a problem?

Maybe if you reflected on those questions, all of which I provided links to explain, you might understand why people are asking hard questions.

Do you have a vested interest?

Nope. Are you? You seem to be going out of your way to deflect from blaming governance?

Your claim was they spend a fortune and make the problems worse and that's some of the reasons you don't like them.

I asked you to explain that, what's your reference for such a claim. How do they make the problems worse and...

Have you a cost analysis?

Does the government or agencies of the government provide the same services, do these cost less are they more efficient?

In your own time.

90% is an astonishing figure , that’s going to be an issue when staff required to register with CORU.

Do you know what type of hostels they are ?

I was of the opinion that’s most recruiting is done using Activelink or internally .