Archive News
Charities proliferate because Governments dodge their duties
Date Published: 26-Sep-2012
The Labour Party Senator who wants more effective regulation of charities is right about one thing – there are too many of them. But John Whelan seems content to ignore the reason for their growth in numbers – it’s because successive Governments have abdicated their responsibilities and left them to somebody else.
It is down to charities like the Society of St Vincent de Paul to keep bread on the table for those that the Government has forced to live below the poverty line; COPE looks after those who have nowhere to live or who are victims of domestic violence – and Galway Hospice is one of the organisations that looks after the sick to make their end of life more comfortable and compassionate.
Barnardos looks after the welfare of children, and – if they are sick – charities like the Jack and Jill Foundation provides the respite care that the state refuses to.
Despite the fact that suicide is bordering on a national crisis, it is left to charities like Console or Pieta House to provide care and counselling for those vulnerable people who can get little or no help from state agencies unless they present themselves during normal office hours.
We could go on – but the bottom line is that this country is backboned by volunteerism; both because we’re lucky enough to live in a nation where people still care for each other, but equally because the state is happy to abdicate its responsibilities to any group or individual who has the generosity of spirit to offer help.
So when Senator John Whelan – a member of a body whose future is rightly under threat because of its fairly pathetic contribution to the national cause – decides he wants to sort out the charitable sector with more effective regulation, he might be better off looking at why we need so much charity in the first place.
He may have a point that 7,800 charities operating here is too much, but he’s utterly wrong to equate that with the fact that they collectively take in €6 billion a year while mentioning that some of that comes from state funding and grants.
It is precisely because the HSE doesn’t do its job that we rely on charities like the Hospice Movement to offer the care and compassion the state does not to people at the end of their lives.
It is because the state doesn’t have a proper plan or adequate facilities for those who are homeless that charities are part funded to pick up the slack.
There may well be a lack of accountability among some charities, but the vast majority of them – certainly the ones we all know; the ones run on a professional basis – are utterly transparent.
Indeed many of them have a constitution that limits the amount that can be spent on administration to the point that working for them is as much a vocation as a job.
And while admittedly the revelation of an investigation into allegations of missing money at the Irish Association of Suicidology might seem to lend credence to his stance, the fact is that this was reported by the body itself because of its own checking mechanism.
So for Senator Whelan to tar all charities with the one brush – and to imply that there’s something shadowy going on that can be sorted by stricter regulation – is hugely insulting to people who have given far more service to the public than he has.
His mealy-mouthed concession that ‘the charitable sector occupies a place of central importance in our society and economy’ contrasts rather starkly with the tone of his overall proposal.
He wants regulation so that the state can be saved some money; but he conveniently forgets that the state already saves even more by allowing others to do the job that they should be doing.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
People’s living conditions less than 100 years ago were frightening. We have come a long way. We talk about water charges today, but back then the local District Councils were erecting pumps for local communities and the lovely town of Mountbellew, according to Council minutes, had open sewers,” says Galway County Council archivist Patria McWalter.
Patria believes we “need to take pride in our history, and we should take the same pride in our historical records as we do in our built heritage”. When you see the wealth of material in her care, this belief makes sense.
She is in charge of caring for the rich collection of administrative records owned by Galway County Council and says “these records are as much part of our history as the Rock of Cashel is. They document our lives and our ancestors’ lives. And nobody can plan for the future unless you learn from the past, what worked and what didn’t”.
Archivists and librarians are often unfairly regarded as being dry, academic types, but that’s certainly not true of Patria. Her enthusiasm is infectious as she turns the pages of several minute books from Galway’s Rural District Councils, all of them at least 100 years old.
Part of her role involved cataloguing all the records of the Councils – Ballinasloe, Clifden, Galway, Gort, Loughrea, Mountbellew, Portumna and Tuam. These records mostly consisted of minutes of various meetings.
When she was cataloguing them she realised their worth to local historians and researchers, so she decided to compile a guide to their content. The result is For the Record: The Archives of Galway’s Rural District Councils, which will be a valuable asset to anybody with an interest in history.
Many representatives on these Councils were local personalities and several were arrested during the political upheaval of the era, she explains.
And, ushering in a new era in history, women were allowed to sit on these Rural District Councils – at the time they were not allowed to sit on County Councils.
All of this information is included in Patria’s introductory essay to the attractively produced A4 size guide, which gives a glimpse into how these Rural Councils operated and the way political thinking changed in Ireland during a short 26-year period. In the early 1900s, these Councils supported Home Rule, but by 1920, they were calling for full independence and refusing to recognise the British administration.
“I love the tone,” says Patria of the minutes from meetings. “The language was very emotive.”
That was certainly true of the Gort Rural District Council. At a meeting in 1907, following riots in Dublin at the premiere of JM Synge’s play, The Playboy of the Western World the councillors’ response was vehement. They recorded their decision to “protest most emphatically against the libellous comedy, The Playboy of the Western World, that was belched forth during the past week in the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, under the fostering care of Lady Gregory and Mr Yeats. We congratulate the good people of Dublin in howling down the gross buffoonery and immoral suggestions that are scattered throughout this scandalous performance.
For more from the archives see this week’s Tribunes here
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
SLIGO 0-9
GALWAY 1-4
FRANK FARRAGHER IN ENNISCRONE
GALWAY’S first serious examination of the 2013 season rather disturbingly ended with a rating well below the 40% pass mark at the idyllic, if rather Siberian, seaside setting of Enniscrone on Sunday last.
The defeat cost Galway a place in the FBD League Final against Leitrim and also put a fair dent on their confidence shield for the bigger tests that lie ahead in February.
There was no fluke element in this success by an understrength Sligo side and by the time Leitrim referee, Frank Flynn, sounded the final whistle, there wasn’t a perished soul in the crowd of about 500 who could question the justice of the outcome.
It is only pre-season and last Sunday’s blast of dry polar winds did remind everyone that this is far from summer football, but make no mistake about it, the match did lay down some very worrying markers for Galway following a couple of victories over below par third level college teams.
Galway did start the game quite positively, leading by four points at the end of a first quarter when they missed as much more, but when Sligo stepped up the tempo of the game in the 10 minutes before half-time, the maroon resistance crumbled with frightening rapidity.
Some of the statistics of the match make for grim perusal. Over the course of the hour, Galway only scored two points from play and they went through a 52 minute period of the match, without raising a white flag – admittedly a late rally did bring them close to a draw but that would have been very rough justice on Sligo.
Sligo were backable at 9/4 coming into this match, the odds being stretched with the ‘missing list’ on Kevin Walsh’s team sheet – Adrian Marren, Stephen Coen, Tony Taylor, Ross Donovan, David Kelly, David Maye, Johnny Davey and Eamon O’Hara, were all marked absent for a variety of reasons.
Walsh has his Sligo side well schooled in the high intensity, close quarters type of football, and the harder Galway tried to go through the short game channels, the more the home side bottled them up.
Galway badly needed to find some variety in their attacking strategy and maybe there is a lot to be said for the traditional Meath style of giving long, quick ball to a full forward line with a big target man on the edge of the square – given Paul Conroy’s prowess close to goal last season, maybe it is time to ‘settle’ on a few basics.
Defensively, Galway were reasonably solid with Gary Sice at centre back probably their best player – he was one of the few men in maroon to deliver decent long ball deep into the attacking zone – while Finian Hanley, Conor Costello and Gary O’Donnell also kept things tight.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
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