Riedo charity row over funds

IT BEGAN as an attempt to honour the memory of a murdered Swiss teenager and to help victims of sexual violence, but the Manuela Riedo Foundation yesterday became mired in recriminations after Swiss news media reported allegations of funds unaccounted for.

The Basle-based Irish publican who set up the foundation said he is now going to “walk away” from it after differences with Manuela Riedo’s mother Arlette who gave her approval for a concert in Galway, held in October last year.

Brendan McGuinness said he had organised a concert in the O2 in Dublin last November which he had to cancel and he said he could not trust working with her again.

However, Ms Riedo told a local Swiss newspaper this week that she regretted getting involved with him and that he had refused to return her calls or texts.

Mr McGuinness questioned why €50,000 raised from the Galway concert had not been handed over to the foundation, but the organisers of that concert, in turn, questioned why Mr McGuinness had not handed over €11,000 raised from a concert he held in his pub in July last year.

The row, which was aired on RTÉ Radio's Livelineprogramme yesterday, was described by presenter Joe Duffy as a "disaster" for the foundation. Mr McGuinness set up the foundation with the support of Hans-Pieter and Arlette Riedo last summer in honour of the 15-year-old who was sexually assaulted and murdered by Gerald Barry in Galway in October 2007.

The publican confirmed that he had not yet handed over €11,700 he raised from a concert in his own pub in Switzerland last July to the foundation. “I have to prepare my six-month accounts on Friday and when I do that, I will hand the money over. I’m leaving the foundation and I’m walking away,” he said.

“I’m an honest and straight guy. I gave it everything. I was committed to it. There is no winners in this.

“The young kids that the foundation set out to help are the losers in all of this,” he added.

Organiser of the Galway concert Shane Lennon said they had collected €46,000 of the €50,000 raised and had sent a copy of their accounts to the Riedos last week.