Sir, – Paul Keenan (Letters, October 18th) points out that there is a charity for every 425 people in Ireland. I’ll go one better: there are over 32,000 non-governmental organisations in Ireland, one for every 155 people. These are funded by the taxpayer to the tune of €6 billion (or in our newest monetary unit, three children’s hospitals) every year.
While many of these are undoubtedly providing valuable services, others have immense lobbying power and are seeking to shape society in ways that do not always align with the will of the majority of the public.
With numbers like these and a greater focus on the misuse of public funds at the moment, I expect the next programme for government to contain a commitment to review this sector. – Yours, etc,
E BOLGER,
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Dublin 9.
Sir, – I was astounded to learn that there are 12,000 charities in Ireland. About 20 years ago, when living in Stockholm, the parent-teacher association of my sons’ international school published a cookbook with recipes from around the world and which proved an unexpected success.
We thought we might give the proceeds to charity. This perplexed our Swedish colleagues who explained that there are few charities in Sweden as the state provides for citizens’ needs. In the end we identified two charities: the Swedish Red Cross and a small group in the port of Stockholm helping ships’ crews who got into minor trouble. We gave them each a donation and the rest went to the school library.
How on earth could Ireland have so many charities, many duplicating each other’s activities, and all presumably with CEO salaries to pay, staff and office costs, marketing budgets, etc, and much of it funded by the State? What waste, and what a failure by the State to provide services to which citizens are entitled. – Yours, etc,
JANE MAHONY,
Ranelagh,
Dublin 6.