A VIDEO DECRYING non-government organisations (NGOs) in Ireland features a list of groups that are said to be funded by the State. However, many of the organisations on the list receive no State funding.

NGOs are groups that operate on a non-profit basis that are independent of the government and often include charities, sports groups, cooperatives, religious groups, trade unions and residents’ associations.

In Ireland, the term NGO has increasingly been used as an umbrella definition — often as a pejorative — to describe all non-profit organisations, particularly those which work in advocacy and lobby on behalf of certain sectors, especially when their cause is progressive or when they advocate on behalf of minorities.

A recent video, which has been shared more than 280 times since being posted on 6 September, features online commentator Michael McCarthy speaking to camera, saying that the government is against transparency for NGOs.

“There are 34,000 NGOs in Ireland that receive over 6 billion of your money”, he says.

These are real figures from a 2021 report by Benefacts, a transparency organisation, (though only some, not all, of the 34,000 NGOs received State funding). 

“So what I want to do is just name a few of them,” McCarthy continues, “and you tell me if it sounds like it’s beneficial to Ireland.

“We’ve got the Westport-Kenya partnership,” he begins, “I didn’t realise they needed a partnership”.

McCarthy goes on, listing organisations that he implies are wasting taxpayer’s money.

Some of the organisations listed do receive state funding, such as the Dublin AIDS Alliance (now known as HIV Ireland), and Belong To youth services.

However, others such as the Loughrea Islamic Centre, the Dublin Buddhist Centre, Support for Afghan Further Education (SAFE), and the first organisation mentioned, the Westport-Kenya Partnership — are not funded by the state.

 The Westport-Kenya partnership McCarthy refers to is a charity set up by “a small group of committed Christians in the West of Ireland,” with the goal of providing “vital health services” to people in the Aror area of Kenya. 

“The Westport Aror (Kenya) does not receive State or Government funding,” the group told The Journal by email. “We fundraise locally for our charity.”

The Loughrea Islamic Centre is the name of the organisation behind a small mosque in Co Galway.

An unaudited version of the group’s financial statements for 2022 is available online, showing that while they had €2,447 in assets, they owed money, and were overall at a loss of €38 for that year.

A spokesperson for the group confirmed to The Journal that they do not receive government funding.

Support for Afghan Further Education (SAFE) is a registered charity based in Co Wicklow. They say they are “focused on supporting education and development in rural Afghanistan, with a special emphasis on enabling women and girls to play their part”.

Their website also states: “SAFE has no paid employees at home or abroad and sends no expatriates to work in Afghanistan.

“Until political conditions worsened, the chairperson visited projects annually.

“All services are provided voluntarily and we have no administrative overheads: 100% of donations received goes directly to our projects.”

In an email, the group told The Journal that they receive no funding “whatsoever” from the Irish government.

The Dublin Buddhist Centre is a charity associated with the Triratna Buddhist Community. They largely give classes in Buddhism, meditation, and yoga.

The group has published its audited accounts on their website, which do not show any support from the government since 2022, when they received €1,084 in State funding.

In an email to The Journal, the chair of the Dublin Buddhist Centre explained: “The only government grants or funding we have received were the Covid support schemes in 2020-2022.

“Like many organisations, we depended upon these schemes during the lockdown for the survival of our business.

“The schemes we applied for were the Temporary Covid-19 Wage Subsidy Scheme (TWSS) and the Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme (EWSS).

“All such funding ended in 2022.”

McCarthy, the online commentator who made this video regularly posts false or misleading content on social media.

Recently, he incorrectly claimed that the government needs to nominate candidates to run for president. This is evidently not true, given that Catherine Connolly is on the ballot.

The Journal previously fact-checked claims by McCarthy that the Swedish city of Malmo was as dangerous as Baghdad, that children are being taught Islamic prayers in schools; that footage of a woman being attacked in a church was from Europe; and that the majority of Irish people are against  the EU.

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