What follows is a story about the Transgender Equality Network of Ireland, reported by Mark Tighe and Eoghan Moloney of the Irish Independent on October 19th of this year, just six weeks ago:
The HSE has suspended Transgender Equality Network Ireland (TENI) funding over its failure to produce complete financial accounts.
The HSE confirmed to the Irish Independent that TENI’s funding would remain suspended until it received “signed audited accounts” from the non-profit.
It followed a meeting with TENI on Wednesday.
TENI failed to produce complete financial accounts by May 31, as is required by their grant aid agreement with the HSE.
That is very clear, and above board: An arm of Government suspends funding to an organisation on the basis of its failure to produce accounts on schedule this year.
But here is a story from one of my colleagues here at Gript on Monday, which was also reported elsewhere:
Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Roderic O’Gorman, has announced that 27 LGBTI+ projects are set to receive funding under the 2022 LGBTI+ Community Services Funding Call.
A total of €1,209,832 will be made available to support what the Minister describes as organisations across Ireland that assist the development of rural community infrastructure to be inclusive and welcoming of LGBTI+ persons, address gaps in LGBTI+ services and support existing LGBTI+ community organisations.
This includes funding of €93k to TENI, the Transgender Equality Network of Ireland for a ‘Trans Awareness Hub.’
So, just to be completely clear: One arm of Government suspended funding to TENI just six weeks ago, based on a failure to produce accounts. And another arm of that same Government, with no apparent regard for the concerns of the Department of Health, has just handed them close to six figures.
What is going on?
The reason for the Department of Health’s concern is very clear: Taxpayer funding is going to an organisation which is failing to properly account for how it is spent. It should also not be under-estimated just how big and damning a step it was for the Department of Health to suspend funding: it is not a secret that there is considerable political sympathy for TENI’s cause (transgender rights) both in Government, and the Oireachtas. It is fair to say that every effort would have been made to work with them, and avoid this step having to be taken. And yet the situation was apparently so bad that not even the Irish Government, which is all in on Trans Rights, could tolerate it any longer.
Or tolerate it for six weeks, at any rate.
So why is the Department of Children doling out state funding to an organisation that the Department of Health said just six weeks ago was unfit to receive it?
There are a couple of possible explanations, and let’s get the conspiratorial one out of the way first: if the Government wanted to keep TENI funded regardless of accounting concerns, one way to do that would just be to shift the source of the funding around so that TENI paid no price for failing to abide by its obligations to one department. So it might be no shock to learn that next year, the six figure sums come from the Department of Justice in another “one off” grant, and from the department of education in another “one off” grant the year after that. If it’s no ongoing funding, perhaps the same standards of scrutiny might not apply. I certainly wouldn’t put it past Government to operate that way, when they really want to do something.
The other explanation is the more banal, and probably more likely one: That Government departments don’t talk to each other and don’t have centralized standards for who does and does not get money. In a well governed country, you might think that an organisation which fails to meet its accounting obligations to one department might be blacklisted across all departments. Apparently not.
But that does not make a difference to the public: Does it matter whether your taxes go to TENI from Stephen Donnelly, or from Roderic O’Gorman? I’d suggest it does not – they’re still your taxes.
By the way, exit question: Why does the country need a “trans awareness hub” anyway? Give that money to Enoch Burke – he’s done more to raise awareness around trans issues, and their impact in schools and elsewhere, than TENI ever could. This is just another boondoggle, going to an organisation that should be paying fines for its failure to account for the money it has already received. It certainly should not be receiving any more.