McVerry Trust overstated assets by €3m in 2022 accounts

The Peter McVerry Trust under-reported how much the homelessness charity spent on the running costs of property it owned by €1.3 million, while overvaluing its assets by more than €3 million, according to revised financial accounts.

Earlier this year the charity had to withdraw financial accounts it had published covering 2022, after a number of inaccuracies were identified.

The trust, which is in the middle of a major financial crisis due to a shortfall in income and significant debts, has filed a revised set of accounts detailing several amendments to previously published figures.

The revised accounts show the charity had overstated the size of its financial surplus over the last two years by €1.49 million.

McVerry Trust overstated assets by €3m in 2022 accounts

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Cabinet approval to be sought for €15m bailout of Peter McVerry Trust

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Peter McVerry Trust has been bailing the Government out for a decade. It’s time the favour was repaid

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The total value of properties owned by the charity had been overstated by €3.2 million, with updated accounts revising the worth of property assets down from €165.5 million to €162.3 million.

[ McVerry Trust property maintenance contractor linked to former long-time auditor ]

[ Peter McVerry Trust has been bailing the Government out for a decade. It’s time the favour was repaid ]

The new documents show the charity previously under-reported how much it had spent running its portfolio of more than 600 properties by €418,000 last year and €932,000 in 2021.

The restated financial accounts were approved by the charity’s board last week and filed in the Companies Registration Office at the weekend.

The new filings stated the original accounts for 2022 “did not comply” with the Companies Act, as a required compliance statement had been omitted from the directors’ report. The board believed a revised set of accounts were “required in order to show a true and fair view of the financial position” of the charity for 2022, it said.

The organisation took in €15 million in donations last year, which included a €4.7 million donation from the Capuchin Day Centre to be spent on social housing for homeless people.

The trust received €43 million in State funding, with nearly half that coming from the Dublin Region Homeless Executive (DRHE), which paid the charity €19.5 million to run homeless services.

The initial accounts incorrectly stated the charity received €2.6 million in funding from the Department of Justice, when €2.4 million of the figure had come from the Department of Integration and Children.

The charity also clarified it had spent €1.6 million on agency staff in 2022, which had not been outlined in the original accounts. The board’s finance and audit committee had met six not seven times last year, as the original accounts had stated.

[ Peter McVerry Trust bought several apartments developed by its own auditor ]

[ Cabinet approval to be sought for €15m bailout of Peter McVerry Trust ]

The charity, one of the main providers of homeless services in the State, has been grappling with a financial crisis that has brought it to the brink of collapse in recent months.

Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien is planning to bring a memo to Cabinet this week seeking approval for a €15 million bailout of the trust.

Under the proposal, emergency State funding would be released on a phased basis between next month and March 2024. In return the charity will have to draw up a detailed plan for how it will put itself on a sustainable financial footing going forward.

It is expected approval for the bailout will be sought at the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday. However the matter could possibly be pushed to the following week, one source said.

Two statutory investigations into financial and governance issues in the trust by the Charities Regulator and the Approved Housing Bodies Regulatory Authority are ongoing.

The Peter McVerry Trust did not respond to requests for comments on its recently filed revised financial accounts for 2022.