Senator Sharon Keogan has called on Irish politicians to have “a serious look” at restricting taxpayer funding of NGOs. Speaking in the Seanad Keogan said that Ireland has 32,141 NGOs, with the sector receiving annual state funding to the tune of €5.9 billion.
The Senator accepted that there is a role for the State to fund charities and good causes, but said that “where this systems breaks down, and becomes suspect is where the government finds itself funding bodies whose sole purpose is not to help, to serve, or to facilitate…it is to lobby.”
Keogan stated that “many of these NGOs wield enormous lobbying power that is completely disproportionate to the support they have in the community,” and that these NGOs are “presumed” to be significant, and representative, based on the “shadow they cast on Twitter.”
Describing the sector as “massively bloated,” the Senator went on to state that the NGO sector has become “the tail that wags the dog.”
Whilst the Senator did not specifically name any NGOs she thought should not be funded by the state she has recently called on the National Women’s Council of Ireland (NWCI) to be defunded, saying “if they have the support of the women of Ireland and various associations then they should be self sustainable.”
Gript recently showed that the NWCI had spent €3.3 million on staff between 2016 and 2020, whilst only spending €502,000 on “programme activities” over the same period. The NWCI is funded nearly entirely by public money.
Senator Keogan closed her speech by saying that the public had a right to come directly to politicians with their concerns, and that “they don’t need to be on a payroll to do it.”