‘NGOs can’t become privatised arms of government’

Catholic Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin has welcomed the setting up of a Charities Regulatory Authority but has warned non-governmental organisations against becoming little more than privatised arms of government.

In a keynote address to the annual conference of the Irish Charities Tax Reform, the representative body for Irish charities, he said that while NGOs will see themselves as a more efficient deliverer of social programmes, governments may look on them as a cheaper way to deliver government-funded programmes.

“NGOs can unwittingly become simply the privatised arm of government; with governments outsourcing certain services through them,” he said.