The future of Inner City Helping the Homeless (ICHH) seems to be in jeopardy.
Former Dublin Lord Mayor Christy Burke has resigned as interim chairperson. On Monday, ICHH’s solicitors informed the Charities Regulator that they were requesting the High Court to appoint an inspector to conduct an inquiry into the organisation and recommend what ought to be done with it.
That was followed on Tuesday morning by a statement from the Dublin Region Homeless Executive (DRHE), which is under the auspices of the City Council, they recommended that ICHH be dissolved.
This comes in the wake of the resignation of former Chair David Hall, the refusal of Gary Gannon TD to take over as chair, and the decision of former director Clare O’Connor to resign from the board.
Their withdrawal was made clear at an Emergency General Meeting held last week. Sources claim that supporters and friends of the late Councillor Anthony Flynn were annoyed at the withdrawal from the board, as they would prefer that the board retain persons of public standing so that the organisation could continue without any further inquiry into its affairs.
This abandonment of ICHH by people who were previously effusive in praise of Flynn was telling. Others, though many tweets have now been deleted, continued for some time to claim that there was no basis to the allegations made against Flynn, though it is now clear that there seems to have been a serious basis for the investigation by the Gardaí.
At this point, what do we know now about the allegations made against Anthony Flynn and the impact of those allegations on the homeless charity?
Perhaps the most overlooked but revealing of the assertions is that its alleged Flynn was using cocaine. The abuse and sale of drugs seem to be at the heart of this story, along with the exploitation of vulnerable people.
Some north inner-city residents claim to have known that Flynn had previous associations with people in the area who were users, and perhaps dealers, of cocaine. Cocaine, and its use – as well as the criminal elements involved in its sale – feature prominently in local talk.
An internal report, written by former Chairperson David Hall, and seen by Gript, sets out the sequence of events following the receipt of an email sent by the Charity Regulator to ICHH on July 30 asking whether they were aware of allegations made by homeless people.
Flynn denied any knowledge of such complaints but seems to have suggested another person to whom the email might refer. A complaint was made against another person in ICHH – not Flynn – who was suspended by Hall with the agreement of the board.
On August 5, the board wrote to the Charity Regulator stating that they had no knowledge of the complaints that had been made. This was followed at 5pm on August 5 by an email from the person who had made the original complaint against the person who had initially been suspended – but who now also alleged that the Gardaí and the sexual assault unit were investigating another complaint against a second person, who Hall discovered was Flynn.
Hall went to Store Street Garda Station on August 7 where he was informed that there had been a complaint against two people including two allegations of assault on two males by Flynn.
One was by a 21 year old male who claimed that in May this year Flynn had drugged and raped him after using the charity’s taxi account to bring him to Flynn’s home. This led to the alleged victim presenting himself to a sexual assault treatment unit who then contacted the Gardaí and took his statement implicating Flynn.
This was followed two weeks later by another claim of an assault that had taken place in similar circumstances. That has been followed by two more alleged victims coming forward with one claiming that Flynn had transferred money to him to buy cocaine in payment for sex.
When asked about this by Hall, Flynn responded that “this was more bullshit.” Hall nonetheless suspended Flynn.
Hall also decided that there was no evidence to support the allegations against the other person who was the subject of the first complaint, other than that this person had behaved perhaps unprofessionally by meeting a client in a coffee shop rather than in the office.
That person later told Hall that he had made a statement to the Gardaí several months previously. Hall knew nothing of this until he saw the email sent to the ICHH on August 5.
During his investigations, Hall found no evidence of “financial irregularities” other than the possible misuse and concealment of the ICHH taxi account which it was alleged had been used by Flynn to bring the alleged victims to his home.
Hall’s report then details some of the abuse and threats to which he was subjected following the death of Flynn, and Garda advice regarding his decision to stay away from the ICHH office. Hall offered to arrange a meeting between the family and the Gardaí so that they might be informed of the details of the investigation but they refused to do so.
Some of the stories circulating regarding the threats and the provenance of the threats against David Hall and others associated with the case, including against one of the victims, paint a sordid picture of a culture in which Flynn would seem to have significant contact.
It was very noticeable that in the aftermath of Flynn’s suicide that quite a number of people on the left were very quick to come to his defence. These included one independent left city councillor from a different electoral ward who accused the media of being complicit in his death. Local Sinn Féin members, by contrast, do not generally share that sympathetic view of Flynn.
Flynn himself had made clear his own affinity with far-left political views, including tweeting a post in which he mocked people taking part in a public religious event, describing them as “far-right”, apparently because they were saying the rosary.
Whatever the truth or otherwise of allegations surrounding the sad death of Councillor Flynn, there are clearly many people who seem to have an interest in attempting to maintain an organisation that, whatever good work it may have done is now deeply compromised by even what has already emerged into the public sphere.
The DRHE statement today notes that voluntary groups, such as ICHH, are not funded by them, nor by other state agencies, and that they clearly prefer that such services are wholly under the control of the established NGOs with whom the DRHE does have a relationship. While that is understandable, as is their reference to the need for vetting for people involved in providing services for the homeless, it would be unfortunate if all voluntary groups were to fall victim to what has happened to ICHH.
There was and clearly is a perceived need for services such as the stalls which provide food and clothing for people who are homeless. Sadly, that seems set to continue whatever the fallout from the allegations made against Anthony Flynn.
Michael Davis