Members raise concerns over ‘integrity’ of charity for the blind keeping State grant

Members of a charity that supports the blind have raised concerns over the “integrity” of keeping a €200,000 State grant to cover Covid-19 fundraising losses, after the charity’s income ended up significantly increasing.

Fighting Blindness, a charity which provides counselling to the visually impaired and funds research, received a €200,000 Covid-19 stability grant to help cover losses from the pandemic's impact on fundraising.

The Department of Rural and Community Development grant was administered by Pobal, a State body that oversees funding to community groups.

It was paid on the basis the charity expected traded income to drop by at least 25 per cent.

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In an email accepting the grant on July 9th, 2020, Fighting Blindness chief executive Kevin Whelan said the charity's board "wish to advise Pobal that in the event of a materially significant improvement in income that it is committed to advising Pobal accordingly and promptly".

However, the charity’s overall income ended up increasing from €2.3 million in 2019 to €3.4 million in 2020, according to its latest financial accounts.

The amount brought in from its main fundraiser, a private members raffle, increased from €1.1 million to €1.47 million in 2020, and the charity moved from a €327,000 deficit in 2019 to a €730,000 gain during the first year of Covid-19.

In a statement, Fighting Blindness said while its overall income increased in 2020, the Pobal grant related to fundraising and trading income, which had dropped by 5 per cent.

In late 2020 the charity declined a €90,500 top-up grant from Pobal, which would have been subject to confirmation that “projected fundraising/traded income loss of 25 per cent or greater in 2020 remains the case now”.

Mr Whelan told Pobal officials it appeared the charity’s drop in income “will not be fully 25 per cent”, according to correspondence released to The Irish Times under the Freedom of Information Act.

Members’ concerns

Concerns over how eligible the charity was to retain the €200,000 State grant, given its better-than-expected financial position, were raised by several members at the charity’s annual general meeting in December 2021.

After the agm a group of "concerned members" wrote to the Charities Regulator and the Department of Rural and Community Development, questioning whether Fighting Blindness was eligible to keep the funding.

Correspondence sent on December 20th by the group told officials the charity’s income had not fallen but increased. It said a third of members had opposed approving the 2020 financial accounts, in part due to an “absence of sufficient clarity” over whether Fighting Blindness had disclosed its improved financial circumstances to Pobal.

The group said they did not wish to see the charity’s “integrity and good name eroded by any potential falling short in relation to ethics and governance” over the State grant.

Lisa Keveney, department assistant principal, told the whistleblowers that officials had not been aware of the "financial position" of the charity, and passed the information to Pobal to conduct an audit into the charity's grant.

Mr Whelan emailed Pobal officials on December 21st stating the board and senior executives were “satisfied that we conducted ourselves in an honourable manner”.

Organisations had to provide accounts to the department within six months of the 2020 financial year ending, according to the conditions of the grant.

Fighting Blindness shared their accounts only in January 2022, with Mr Whelan stating the delay was “Covid related” as the charity did not hold its agm until December 2021.

In a statement to The Irish Times, Pobal confirmed it was in the “final stages” of an audit into the Fighting Blindness grant. The State body said if an organisation’s traded income did not fall by 25 per cent it “may be required to refund the grant funding, or any portion thereof”.

A spokesman for Fighting Blindness said the charity “notified Pobal that our drop in fundraised and trading income would not be as large as projected when we were offered an extension to our grant – which we also refused. We subsequently provided our audited accounts to confirm that.”

The charity had set aside funding if Pobal “deem it necessary for a full or partial repayment to be made” of the grant, he said.

“As we understand it, we are following the procedure that Pobal has put in place which would have no impact on the integrity of the charity,” the spokesman said.