Public trust in charity sector must be earned

Your front page headline “We’re the real victims: Rehab” (Irish Examiner, Jan 23) is a spectacular example of how the charity sector fails to distinguish self interest from the public interest.

The reason Rehab are ‘the real victims’ is that public trust in the charity sector has been stretched to the point of rupture because of a lack of legitimacy, credibility and transparency.

What basic social accountability can exist when there is persistent grandstanding and obfuscation about an issue, such as executive compensation, in an organisation so utterly dependent on taxpayers’ and voluntary public support?

What is the public to make of a state-funded charity that pays a well-connected insider €77,000 for consultancy and routes this payment through a company that had long ceased to exist because it failed to file paperwork?

All of us could be ‘real victims’ if qualification was a poor mouth and self-nomination. But trust is fragile and has to be earned. The power brokers of the charity sector demonstrate an overwhelming capacity to take care of their personal interest at the expense of those chronically dependent on their skill, leadership and integrity. Could they explain why they deserve public trust and esteem?

Myles Duffy

Glenageary

Co Dublin