Since his 1987 appointment, Mr Cian O Tighearnaigh has had a high media profile as he transformed the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children from an organisation which provided family centres and pre-schools in deprived areas to one identified primarily with its free helpline, Childline, and campaigns against child abuse.
The ISPCC succeeded the British-based National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children when the latter withdrew from Ireland in the mid-1950s. It assumed the NSPCC's brief of combating "cruelty" to children, and its inspectors were usually the first port of call for those seeking to report instances of cruelty and neglect.
The "cruelty men", as they were known, had statutory powers to seek care orders in the courts. These functions were taken over by the health boards in the early 1970s.
The society then turned its attention to running family centres in deprived urban areas, and pre-school services for children at risk, for which it received health board support. However, most of these services were axed when Mr O Tighearnaigh took over in 1987.
He took over an organisation which was facing a financial crisis. From a fund-raising rather than a child-care or a social work background, he stressed the importance of getting the society on to a firm financial footing and rationalising its activities. On his appointment he also announced his intention to set up a helpline for children. A Childline had just been set up in Britain with high-profile media support.
Childline was launched in Ireland a year later, and by 1992 was reporting 30,000 calls a year. That figure had risen to 150,000 five years later.
Childline is now the ISPCC's flagship activity, although it also offers family support through childhood support workers, and runs an annual Children's Forum and a number of locally-based drop-in centres for children.
Childline is at the centre of the ISPCC's fund-raising activity, through advertisements in newspapers appealing for bequests, through the bucket collections, which were at the centre of the Sunday Business Post allegations and now the Garda investigation, and through boxes in shops and supermarkets.
Mr O Tighearnaigh has said that Childline receives more than 150,000 calls from children each year. However, only a tiny number of these lead to referrals of instances of child abuse to health boards. When health boards were asked more than a year ago how many cases had been referred through Childline, few of them reported Childline-referred cases running into double figures. The total was fewer than 100.
Mr O Tighearnaigh's critics question the value of Childline, which they see as essentially a fund-raising tool.
Others query the society's present spending priorities. "How much do they spend on these IMS opinion polls, and their big billboard poster campaigns?" one child welfare worker asked.
But this ball may eventually bounce back into the Government's court. This State has no social service inspectorate. The Government recently announced the creation of a social service inspector, but this individual will have no responsibility in the sphere of voluntary organisations.
In Northern Ireland, for example, the social service inspectorate reports on voluntary organisations as well as statutory bodies, on how they are organised, how their money is being spent, and the service content of their activities.
The examination of the affairs of the ISPCC may prompt the Minister of State at the Department of Health and Children, Mr Frank Fahey, to extend the functions of the yet-to-be-appointed social service inspector.