{"id":238175,"date":"2025-12-17T21:42:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T21:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/238175\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T21:42:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T21:42:09","slug":"gardai-search-five-properties-in-escalation-of-peter-mcverry-trust-investigation-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/238175\/","title":{"rendered":"Garda\u00ed search five properties in escalation of Peter McVerry Trust investigation \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Garda\u00ed<\/a> have deepened their criminal investigation into the Peter McVerry Trust<\/a> (PMVT), seizing items of \u201cevidential value\u201d in five searches last week. <\/p>\n

The Garda National Economic Crime Bureau<\/a> has separately made \u201cdirect contact\u201d with the housing and homeless charity in recent days. <\/p>\n

The office, formerly known as the Garda fraud bureau, started the investigation in September after a lengthy evaluation of McVerry Trust affairs that was ongoing for more than six months. Members of the Corporate Enforcement Authority<\/a>, the State\u2019s corporate watchdog, have joined the inquiry.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs part of an ongoing investigation into a body in the housing sector, garda\u00ed from the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau conducted searches at five premises in Dublin, Kildare and Tipperary on Friday, December 12th, 2025,\u201d said a Garda statement. <\/p>\n

\u201cGarda\u00ed were assisted by members from the Corporate Enforcement Agency during this operation. A number of items of evidential value were seized during these searches.\u201d<\/p>\n

The premises searched were not identified. However, it is understood PMVT\u2019s office was not searched by officers.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo arrests have been made at this time. Investigations are ongoing,\u201d the Garda statement added. <\/p>\n

The trust, established in the 1980s by Jesuit priest Fr Peter McVerry, is one of Ireland\u2019s best-known charities, providing affordable housing and services to thousands of tenants and homeless people.<\/p>\n

The organisation was hit by financial troubles two years ago, which led to a \u20ac15 million government lifeline to rescue it from potential collapse. <\/p>\n

PMVT said in October that solicitors Mason Hayes & Curran made a confidential disclosure on its behalf to garda\u00ed \u201cin relation to invoices issued by a contractor\u201d. <\/p>\n

That disclosure was made in June under section 19 of the Criminal Justice Act, which prohibits the withholding of information that might assist in a prosecution or conviction.<\/p>\n

Although PMVT previously said An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na \u201chas not made any direct contact with Peter McVerry Trust\u201d, the situation changed after the searches last Friday.<\/p>\n

In a statement by the trust, issued after the Garda statement, PMVT reiterated that its disclosure to the force of invoice-related matters was made \u201cas a prudent and precautionary measure\u201d in light of information with potential legal implications. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe can also confirm that earlier this week the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau was in direct contact with the organisation,\u201d PMVT said .<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are committed to fully cooperating and will provide any information they may require. We welcome this investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Misgovernance in PMVT and lax financial controls have been criticised in a series of damning reports by housing and charity regulators and the Comptroller and Auditor General, the public spending watchdog.<\/p>\n

The trust received \u20ac164.3 million in State funding in 2018-2022 and \u20ac72.6 million in donations. It is now almost wholly reliant on State money because donations collapsed in the wake of the crisis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Garda\u00ed have deepened their criminal investigation into the Peter McVerry Trust (PMVT), seizing items of \u201cevidential value\u201d in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100657,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[956,9,10,125939,18,13,14,104201,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,63909,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-238175","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-an-garda-siochana","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-corporate-enforcement-authority","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-featured-news","14":"tag-featurednews","15":"tag-garda-national-economic-crime-bureau","16":"tag-headlines","17":"tag-ie","18":"tag-ireland","19":"tag-latest-news","20":"tag-latestnews","21":"tag-main-news","22":"tag-mainnews","23":"tag-news","24":"tag-peter-mcverry-trust","25":"tag-top-stories","26":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115737090159865745","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}