VOLUNTEERS ACCUSE CHARITY REGULATOR: Say it is “harsh, unwieldy and unrealistic”

In a statement Helping Irish Hosts said that the Charities Regulator had been unrealistic about what a group formed at short notice to respond to a crisis, could do in a matter of months.

“In May 2022, while supporting thousands of Ukrainians fleeing war, we applied for charity registration. After months of back-and-forth, the Charities Regulator declined in December to recommend Helping Irish Hosts for registration, citing payments to trustees and connected persons, lack of open recruitment processes, uncertainty over salary-setting, and questions about whether paid roles served a charitable purpose. They also suggested we relied too heavily on paid staff rather than volunteers.

“These concerns fundamentally misunderstood the nature of emergency response. We were operating in full crisis mode. People were sleeping in airport terminals. Families were arriving with nowhere to go. We were matching displaced people with Irish households, conducting welfare checks, coordinating safeguarding, and managing complex case work across the country – all while building the infrastructure of an organisation from scratch.”

So much was required that it couldn’t all be done by volunteers alone, with a very real need for paid expertise and skills.

The statement continued:

“This work required specialist skills: trauma-informed support, safeguarding protocols, data protection, and logistical coordination at scale. It could not be done solely by volunteers, nor sustained safely over time without paid expertise. The short-term payments in question – salaries, consultancy fees, and expense reimbursements – were made before any public funding existed.

“People were stepping up however they could: covering laptops, suitcases, food packages, room hire for roadshows. Once the organisation stabilised, all related-party arrangements ended and formal policies were introduced.”

It said that there was no acknowledgement of the base they were coming from, where nothing had been in place previously.

“The Regulator applied the standards of a long-established charity to what was, in effect, a rapid-response community start-up. There was no clear guidance for organisations formalising during a crisis. Departments within the CRA gave conflicting advice.

“There was no pathway that acknowledged the public interest work already being delivered, work that was publicly recognised, government-supported, and carried out under a service-level agreement with the Irish Red Cross.”

It claimed that the Regulator seemed to oppose the group rather than assist it, while it showed no apparent respect for the work it was doing.

“Instead of support, we faced an adversarial process. We were threatened with jail time. Treated as bad actors. Our work – helping Irish households open their doors to people fleeing war – was never acknowledged as being in the public interest, nor was our purpose deemed charitable,” said the group.

Ultimately its board decided in early 2023 not to continue with the registration process.

It says that it has continued to play a positive role in society, despite its experience.

“Helping Irish Hosts continued to operate as a Company Limited by Guarantee – seeking and receiving grants, delivering publicly funded work through our agreement with the Irish Red Cross, and running philanthropic and EU-funded projects.

“By the time our official role in the government’s Ukraine response ended in April 2025, we had matched over 3,000 displaced people with 1,500 Irish households, built a wealth of resources for hosts and guests (including a support line that fielded 70 calls per day) and built a peer-to-peer support network that sustained placements – many still going strong three years later.

“We maintain independently audited accounts for three consecutive years, operate under a strong and active board, and voluntarily adhere to the Charities Regulator’s governance standards – because we believe in transparency, integrity, and public trust.”

Helping Irish Hosts claims that its experience shows that the current system works against anyone trying to respond to an emergency.

“It penalises agility, punishes those who act before bureaucracy catches up, and offers no pathway for groups doing urgent public-interest work to formalise without jeopardising their ability to operate.

“Communities were stepping up when systems weren’t. The regulation process should have supported that, not threatened to shut it down,” the statement ends.

Response from Charities Regulator

The Charities Regulator issued a response in which it said its role was not to stop anyone doing something positive, but there are legally defined requirements that a group must meet if it is to be designated a charity.

“The Charities Regulator does not prevent an individual or an organisation from carrying out good work. Charities are one type of not-for-profit organisation, and our statutory role is to regulate Ireland’s 11,500 charities on behalf of the public so they can have trust and confidence in the sector. The Charities Act 2009 is very clear on the requirements to be a charity, what we call the Charity Test, and by law, an organisation must meet each of these requirements to be registered.”

It said that these requirements are still in place even if a group is formed quickly to respond to a crisis.

“The Irish people are known for their generosity including at times of national and international crisis when they understandably want to help in whatever way they can. However, registration is a legal process set out in law and this takes time, which is why we encourage people to donate time or money to an established registered charity at a time of crisis, as it is a much more effective way of assisting people than seeking to set up a charity from scratch.

“Any changes to the requirements to be a charity would require a change in legislation, which is a matter for government.”

Perhaps the most striking complaint from Helping Irish Hosts was its claim that its representatives had been warned they could be sent to prison.

While it didn’t address that claim specifically, the Regulator’s statement said, “On a general note, the Charities Regulator takes a proportionate approach to regulating the sector. However, we are obliged to point out the potential legal penalties of non-compliance with charity law. This is to protect the public who may donate to organisations they believe to be charities which are regulated entities.”

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