HSE suspends Transgender Equality Network funding for failing to produce financial accounts despite getting tens of thousands in grants from the State

31 comments

  1. _”This means TENI has missed the deadline for filing its annual accounts for the fourth year in a row.”_

    FFS, follks

  3. When I say I’ll be financially transparent I’ll be financially transparent. There’s no need to regularly ask me to be for years on end.

  4. How can any organisation possibly expect to receive government funding when they have missed filing deadlines for annual accounts 4 years in a row?

    That is a direct sign of piss poor capabilities, management, organisation & abilities.

  5. Why do they continue to get funding if they can’t account for any of it? They should be cut off pending their production financial reports.

    The cynic in me thinks its basically been co-oped into a slush fund for some higher level executives.

  8. Seems like a very amateurish organsiation. Had a look at the 2020 accounts submitted and there’s a reference to bullying and harassment of the former CEO in the post balance sheet events. Very strange thing to include in the financial statements.

  12. Like most NGO’s here this was just a slush fund to keep a few talking heads in jobs. Hopefully they are closed and we can save a fraction of the wasted 6 billion a year on NGO

  14. HSE funding in Ireland is an absolute joke across the entire board of most charities funded by the HSE.

    I’ve seen it personally up close and they are wasting tax payer money left right and centre. Many of these charities get unrestricted funds off the HSE, don’t repay any unused amounts and are profit making.

    They’re all headed by people who give themselves a generous salary and pittance for those below them. Most of the board members are elderly/not directly involved and don’t oversee the financials directly. So a lot happens under the boards nose without them ever realising. Board governance needs to improve across the board, take out the cronies and put in more governing regulation. Aggressive financial controls should be in place and they simply aren’t. How is the government ok with handing out our money like this?

    It is so corrupt and needs to be changed. These guys needed to be audited like a PIE, as it’s our tax money funding this shit show. HSE costs this country a lot of money and is totally mismanaged. Same goes for most Irish government funding.

    The EU is a lot better at auditing the funds they hand out here, and will take back all unused funds, disallow certain expense etc..

  16. The board and CEO should be fucking ashamed of themselves. Look at the credentials on the board – how can they sign off on accounts that are never submitted? Shocking.

  18. I’m a trans woman, never understood the hype TENI got. Whenever I went to their website half the stuff on it was just events promoting TENI. Very little info that actually helps trans people in Ireland get actual help beyond a few links here and there. Maybe they were working more behind the scenes but I never got that impression from their site. I understand that some people got lots of help from it but I got more help from just talking to regular trans people.

  19. Sounds like a similar situation to Irish Autism Action, soaking up all the Irish funding for an issue and using it to fund CEO salaries. Oh, but they raise awareness……like trans and autism families aren’t already aware of the challenges.

  22. We need to have a serious look at NGOs in this country. Soaking up millions in public cash and most of them are run like circuses.

  23. the entire NGO/Charity space needs serious regulation and more oversight. There’s a lot of corruption and dodgy stuff that if it was done in a normal business would get you audited or shut down. Charities do a lot of good so it’s fine line to thread.

  24. I’m recently employed in a charity in the research sector, I cannot understand how it would be allowed to get to this stage?

    All the work I’ve been involved in so far has been evaluations for services that received HSE funding showing how funds have been used, the impact the services have had and how staff and support recipients would like to see the service improved. Even from my healthcare background we were shown how to make proposals for new services/interventions and big emphasis on proving cost effectiveness and transparency of costs.

    Really disappointing to see this slip through and the lack of trust it will brew for charities, particularly LGBTQI+ and Trans related ones 🙁

  26. “TENI has received more than €1.3m from the HSE since 2017.”

    There is a constant flow of parliamentary assistants and former politicians into NGOs who are paid by the government to lobby the government

  27. NGOs are a cancer on this country. Scamming tax payers to the tune of 6 Billion. Sole purpose is to enrich the well connected.

  28. Are there any honest charities in this country or are they all corrupt to the bone? Scandals are endemic — every time the same thing, misappropriation of funds.

  29. Slightly off topic but this is massively why I would not work anywhere based purely on my sexuality or gender identity. Even the staff team let alone the BoM on TENI, their main credentials seem to be based around their identity or university politics and activism. That kind of way in the door leads to a very fishbowl thinking in my opinion.

    Prefacing this with I’m an out and proud etc gay man but I would never deliberately work somewhere where my sexuality has to be relevant to my job. Reeks of a lack of substance in ones life if their professional life AND their personal life is based around their sexuality or gender identity. Organisations need a balance when working with marginalised people or groups considered vulnerable and this organisation ain’t it I’m afraid.

  30. Imho it never looks good if a charity director earns a massive salary,drives a flash car and lives in a mansion.Only minimal costs should be paid for their networking otherwise the Charity’s Funds are being misspent.

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