Finlay: State negligent on the supervision of charities

The head of one of the country’s leading charities believes the Government has been grossly negligent in failing to adequately supervise where billions of taxpayers’ money has been spent in the charities sector.

Fergus Finlay, chief executive of the children’s charity Barnardos, said the State had abdicated its duty of care for the disabled and other vulnerable members of society by not strictly implementing conditions on how funding from the Government can be used.

In 2012, Section 38 and 39 organisations received almost €3.3bn from the State and Mr Finlay claimed that because the HSE turned “a blind eye” to contract agreements, it resulted in top-up payments and other scandals blighting the sector.