Sir, - In response to a letter from Richard Martin (December 1st), I'm happy to answer the questions he raised about the Children's Hour appeal.
The campaign, which asks every member of the Irish workforce to donate an hour of their pay from this millennium to help the disadvantaged children of the next, was initiated by the Irish Youth Foundation, of which I am chairman. To give the campaign appropriate balance and impetus, we invited a cross-section of community leaders to form a committee to promote the idea. This group includes, amongst others, the chief executive of An Post, the managing director of Tesco, the general secretary of the ICTU and the provost of Trinity College Dublin.
We also appointed a project manager, Paul Keogh, who is well-known to the marketing and record industries and who has taken responsibility for the huge physical effort involved in making it possible for individuals, companies and other groups to get involved.
The Irish Youth Foundation operates on the basis that "every penny goes to the kids" - a credo that we can sustain through sponsorship of the costs that inevitably arise. This means that our administrative and promotional costs, which are modest in themselves, are paid for by supporters who commend the work that we do.
We have carried this ethos into the campaign behind Children's Hour and are extremely grateful to all those who have given their time and talent so willingly to create the promotional messages that have appeared in the media over recent weeks. We are also appreciative of the media owners and production companies who have been generous in their support as well, not to mention the financial institutions who have agreed to waive all transactional charges involved.
The campaign, which is likely to generate an amount in excess of £3.5m will have some costs which have been fully underwritten in advance thanks to a grant of £250,000 allocated from the National Lottery. This will allow us to cover all administrative, promotional, marketing and transactional charges that have arisen and means that every penny of the money donated by the workforce will go directly to the specific projects.
It is likely to be well into the New Year before all donations are received. At that point, we plan to publish the results of the appeal and announce specific projects which will get support, given that it has always been our intention that the money raised will be divided equally into thirds, the first going to the Irish Youth Foundation, the second to the Children's Trust and the third to a five way split between the National Youth Federation of Ireland, the Children's Museum, Focus Ireland, Barnardos and Temple Street Hospital. All payments from the Children's Hour fund must be authorised by our auditors, Ernst & Young, in accordance with our disbursement charter.
I trust this provides clarification for your readers and I hope that Richard Martin will join with the 500,000 people who have so far committed an hour's pay to Children's Hour.
Richard, we will be happy to take your call on 1850 31 12 99. - Is mise, Bill Cullen,
Chairman, Irish Youth Foundation, Glencullen House, Kylemore Road, Ballyfermot, Dublin 10.