An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business
Seanad Éireann — 2026-04-28
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Sharon Keogan (IND), Industrial and Commercial Panel

A story reported this morning in the Irish Examiner relates to the announcement that the HSE has launched an investigation into the alleged transfer by the charity Autism Initiatives Ireland of over €1.5 million to the UK.
The transfers are alleged to have taken place as far back as 2019. Rather than dwell on the specific details of the case, which are to be investigated, I want to address what this story reveals about the wider state of public infrastructure and support in this country, or more accurately the alarming absence of it. A cursory glance at the autism service landscape reveals a system defined by fragmentation and disorder. Dozens of NGOs and charities operate in this space, many almost entirely funded by the taxpayer. They often deliver overlapping services with little evidence of co-ordination, strategic planning or enforced efficiency. This is just one area - autism - and we could also touch on homelessness, disability, mental health and other marginalised groups more broadly.
What we are seeing is a State that has offloaded the delivery of core public services to NGOs without building the institutional architecture required to govern such a model properly. Responsibility has been blindly outsourced. We had that responsibility when Benefacts was there but they got rid of it back in 2023. Oversight exists largely on paper. Service level agreements measure activity rather than outcomes. Audits occur after money has been spent. Regulators are focused on compliance rather than value for money. There is no single authority tasked with ensuring the basics of governance. This creates a system where inefficiency is tolerated, waste goes unchallenged and risk accumulates quietly until it emerges as a headline like the one we read today. The problem here is not charity and it is not goodwill; the problem is a hollowed-out State that no longer designs, manages or disciplines the system it funds. Until we rebuild real public institutions capable of doing that work, controversies like this will not be the exception; they will be inevitable. We would like a debate on this matter.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-04-28/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:52+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-28