Representatives of the Peter McVerry Trust have claimed it would be “premature” to appear before politicians this month to face questions over recent financial troubles at the housing and homeless charity.
The trust wrote to the Oireachtas committee on housing in recent days expressing concerns about appearing before TDs and Senators while two separate statutory investigations into the charity remain ongoing.
In a letter sent on Tuesday, the trust also said it could not discuss a recent €15 million government bailout with TDs because conditions set out by the department of housing as part of its emergency funding had not yet been met by the charity.
The correspondence was co-signed by Deirdre-Ann Barr, the chairperson of the charity’s board, and Father Peter McVerry, the trust’s founder.
In October, following a series of revelations in the Business Post, the Charities Regulator and the Approved Housing Bodies Regulatory Authority both appointed inspectors to carry out separate investigations into financial and governance matters at the trust. Both investigations remain ongoing.
The Oireachtas housing committee agreed to call the organisation in for a meeting early this year to discuss the charity’s financial and governance issues on month later.
In December, Cabinet approved a €15 million emergency bailout for the charity with strict conditions attached.
Darragh O’Brien, the minister for housing, recently told the Business Post that there would be a restructuring of the charity but that “we’re not at that stage yet”.
The trust has told politicians that a number of the 32 conditions set out by the government as part of the bailout are already initiated and are being progressed.
However, “no proposal regarding a restructuring of PMVT has been prepared for the consideration of the board of directors of PMVT or its stakeholders, including most importantly its funders,” the charity said in its letter to the housing committee.
“We are not in a position to discuss any proposed restructuring,” the board said.
Furthermore, “representatives of PMVT will be very limited in what we can say about the organisation” due to the two ongoing statutory inspections.
The trust has asked the committee to consider its position, saying that “it may be premature” for the trust to appear before the Oireachtas committee.
Last week, O’Brien confirmed that ministerial appointments would be made to the board of the trust, but said the “future scale” of the organisation must be examined.
“We’ve done this in a very deliberative way. [The bailout] was an unprecedented decision. I don’t appoint the board, I don’t have representatives on the board, but we will. One of the conditions is that there would be ministerial appointments to the board,” he said.
The trust ran into major difficulty with its creditors earlier this year, to whom it owes €7 million.
The controversy, first revealed during the summer, prompted notifications to the Dublin Region Homeless Executive (DRHE) and the department.
It also led to the appointment of PwC, the auditors, to review the charity’s finances and governance.