Updates in the Charity Law Sector and Team News

New traffic light system

The new “traffic light” system is now live on the Register of Charities, which is accessed on the Charities Regulator website. The system allows the public to quickly see if a charity has submitted its annual report on time, late or not at all. The system only applies to annual reports that were due to be submitted after 2 April 2025. It will not show if a charity has been late or punctual submitting their annual report in previous years. One of three symbols appears beside a charity’s name in the live Register of Charities. The green symbol indicates a charity has submitted their annual report on time, the amber symbol indicates that the annual report has been submitted late, and the red symbol indicates that no annual report has been submitted by the charity.

The introduction of this new system serves as a timely reminder to ensure your annual report is submitted on time, which is within 10 months of the financial year end of a charity. If you need assistance in completing or filing this, please contact a member of our Charity Law and Not-for-Profit team.

Trustee recruitment and retention

The Charities Regulator published their second ezine of the year. It focuses on the difficulties charities are facing recruiting and retaining their trustees. Smaller charities, in particular, are struggling as they often rely on a limited pool of individuals within their locality.

This ezine is a worth a read and can be accessed online.

CRBOT – registering details of Settlors and Beneficiaries for trusts

The Registrar of the Central Register of Beneficial Ownership of Trusts (CRBOT) has recently written to many charities. These letters query whether further information on “Settlors”, “Beneficiaries”, or additional information on the nature and extent of interests held, should be registered on CRBOT. Following earlier letters issued by the Registrar in recent months, the latest correspondence serves as a reminder to trustees about their obligations to register required information on CRBOT. We are engaging with the Registrar for clarification on how charities should respond to these queries. We have recently received clarification from the Registrar regarding a “Religious Trust”. As the trust qualifies as a Religious Trust and the trustees are already registered on CRBOT, there is no requirement to register the Beneficiaries.

If you require any advice regarding these issues, please get in touch with us.

Recent events the Charities Team have been involved with

Partnering with PwC to share key accounting, legal & tax updates for religious charities

We were delighted to co-host our Religious Organisations Update with our colleagues at PwC. Niamh Callaghan, Partner & Head of our Charity & Not-for-Profit Team and Alice Murphy, Partner, spoke about recent legal developments as well as issues impacting religious and faith-based organisations in Ireland. Mairead Connolly, Aisling Meagher, Marie McNamara and Munro O’Dwyer, all with PwC, provided relevant accounting and audit updates to the attendees.

Niamh discussed the enactment of the Charities (Amendment) Act 2024, which has partially commenced with 12 sections coming into force early this year. For more detailed analysis of these 12 sections, please read our previous article.

Alice spoke on how religious organisations can restructure. Alice outlined how a governance assessment can help achieve this by asking questions like:

• Does the current governing structure work well for the religious organisation, and
• How can the legal structure be simplified?

Alice shared examples of how restructuring religious charities has helped them better achieve their goals. These changes also reduced the amount of compliance work needed across multiple organisations.

This event was a great chance to meet with our religious order clients in person. We’ve built strong relationships with them over many years. It was also an opportunity to share our knowledge and insights with them.

The Wheel Summit 2025

Lydia Bentley and Claire Colfer, Senior Associates on the Charity Law and Not-for-Profit team, were delighted to attend and speak at The Wheel Summit that took place on 28 May in Croke Park. The theme of this year’s event was “Thriving Through Change”.

Lydia and Claire spoke about collaborations between charities and how charities can thrive through collaboration. The aim of the session was to highlight the full spectrum of collaboration available to charities from a loose ad hoc alliance to a formal merger.

The Charities Governance Code obliges charities of a certain size to consider the benefits of working with other charities, which is relevant to discussions on collaboration and merger. If you have any questions regarding collaborations between charities, please get in touch with any member of the team.

Future Health Summit 2025

We were delighted to continue our support of the Future Health Summit, which took place at the Dublin Royal Convention Centre on May 28–29.

Bringing together global healthcare leaders, the Summit showcased innovation, best practices, and collaboration aimed at advancing patient care. With renowned speakers, valuable networking opportunities, and the prestigious Innovation Award, the 2025 theme, ‘Global Perspectives Delivering for Irish Patients’, was a key focus.

This year, we sponsored the Legal and Governance session. Partner Robert Dickson delivered a keynote on the topic of ‘Legal Considerations in Healthcare M&A’.

To read more about Robert’s talk please click please click this link.

Speaking to Chartered Accountants Ireland’s Not-for-Profit Committee

Niamh Callaghan, Partner and Head of our Charity Law and Not-for-Profit team, recently gave a talk to the Not-for-Profit Committee of the Chartered Accountants of Ireland. Niamh discussed the duties and obligations that apply to auditors of charitable organisations in their capacity as a “relevant person” under the Charities Act. The session provided valuable, tailored insights for the audience.

Chartered Governance Institute UK & Ireland’s Governance Ireland 2025

Claire Colfer spoke at the recent Chartered Governance Institute UK & Ireland’s Governance Ireland 2025 event at The Printworks, Dublin Castle. Claire gave an overview of some of the key provisions of the Charities (Amendment) Act 2024 to an audience comprising chartered secretaries and governance professionals.

Chartered secretaries and governance professionals are an invaluable resource for charities and charity trustees in helping them meet their various legal, regulatory and governance obligations. Regardless of whether a charity has access to this type of resource, all charity trustees and key members of a charity’s management team should ensure that they are aware of these obligations, including the changes which are coming down the tracks through the Charities (Amendment) Act 2024. While we head into the summer period, many boards may already be looking ahead to their autumn work plan. If you have done so recently, it is worth considering adding a governance training session to that plan.

Next steps

It is becoming increasingly important for charities to provide training to their trustees, and it is a specific requirement of the Charities Governance Code. While charity law duties and responsibilities have been in existence for many years, the ever-changing regulatory environment requires specific training.

Charity trustees need to understand their duties and responsibilities to ensure they can focus on delivering the charity’s purpose, knowing that governance and compliance are being actively managed.

Please contact a member of our Charity Law and Not-for-Profit team if your charity trustees require training, which we can provide on a very focused basis that will be specific to your charity.

The content of this article is provided for information purposes only and does not constitute legal or other advice.