Monthly Archives: February 2014

Very Valid points re: Caranua Fraud Fund!

SURVIVORS who went tru the RIRB Qualify , according to Caranua, but not according to Quinn and his Cronies, who say it is only effective from the actual date of the Caranua launching, 6 January 2014. NOT from the dates of Survivors attendance at the RIRB
, which could have been any date over the last ten years ! Sick scam !

Sick scam 2, Funeral expenses, Survivors cant claim for anything in this , Spouse or Kin,excluded, you qualify if you pass on , but just how do you manage that ? Applying, not Dying !

Scam 3, Caranua was designed and engineered to enable Quinn and his lackys to introduce new legistation , and effectivly do away with the legistation of the STF, adding further Abuse on Survivors, who are mostly elderly now, and still been Abused like they were in their Childhood.

Overall , every bit of this Caranua outfit is the biggest insult to Survivors, Giant size SCAM !
The rules, terms and conditions, the use of Survivors money to furnish a lavish life style for Ms Higgins , and board members , Most of who know f*** all about Survivors or their problems , cant allow a visit to their head office, and use a bloody box no, with a call centre hired out from Bangladeshi !

https://www.facebook.com/events/412744982204738/

There is NOTHING in this fraud fund for Survivors, as we all know already, our Money is been used up in Administration, Salaries, Travel, Expenses, Etc, for Mary Higgins and Co. It is a wonder Minister Quinn did not set up Pre Fund Meeting’s to establish the real needs of us Survivors, they will argue that they did meet with the Groups, but that is of no use to us Survivors when the so called support Groups do not represent us Survivors, they represent themselves and Quinn’s Dept. Mary Higgins is paid to attend those meetings getting travel and expenses, what about us survivors, who are going to try attend his meeting, who will pay for our travel and expenses? Or is it a case of F**k off and vend for ourselves again, after all we don’t matter or count because if we did matter or count there would be “No Statutory Fraud Fund”, that 110 Million plus all the properties is our (Money & our Properties) and should be divided equal among all Survivors and their Families, the State are a guilty party in our abuse and should have “NO” say in our (Reparation Money) good bad or indifferent, if I do go to this meeting I will be telling Mary Higgins in plain English to fuck off and resign at once that is Fraud Fund is NOT going ahead, it’s a Fraud and a Fake to make it look like the Religious orders gave us massive money when the truth of the matter is they only gave us buttons, this Fund is designed to look like this to the public “Oh God those survivors have a Statutory Trust Fund set up for them by the religious orders, those survivors all will be well looked after for life!” This is where we say NO and tell Mary Higgins to tell her boss baldy Minister Quinn to go to hell and we will see them ALL in Court, “CLASS ACTION!” Hand Mary Higgins a short letter printed in big letters saying; “MARY HIGGINS RESIGN FROM YOUR POSITION ON THIS FRAUD FUND NOW AND TELL YOUR BOSS MINISTER QUINN THAT THE SURVIVORS HAVE WOKEN UP TO YOU AND THEY HAVE FIGURED THE FRAUD FUND OUT AND THEY NOW WANT THEIR REPARATION MONEY IN FULL!” and when she reads the letter, every one in the room turn your back on her and ignore her, and if she tries to engage in conversation with any of you, tell her to leave you alone or you will have her done for harassing a witness in a case of a major FRAUD, called the Statutory Fraud Fund which you Mary Higgins are the CEO off !!! ………………  Please Note;  I wrote the above re; a meeting that were taking place some months ago with Mary Higgins CEO of this FRAUD fund! but the points in it remain the same! i will turn some of the points in the above post into a flyer oh and i will add in her salary which is ((((80 Thousand Euro Per Year + all expenses paid in full)))) Please come stand with us while we tell Minister and Mary Higgins to back off and leave our funds alone! P.S we may do a double protest, and protest that all funds going to those groups from the church and state are STOPPED and a proper services put in place for SURVIVORS!

TWO ABUSE SURVIVOR GROUPS ASK PAC TO INVESTIGATE CORK-BASED CHARITY

Two abuse survivor groups ask PAC to investigate Cork-based charity

Monday, November 22, 2010

By Jennifer Hough

THE Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has received two separate requests to investigate a Cork-based charity for survivors of institutional abuse.

Tom Hayes of the Alliance survivor group and Patrick Walsh of SOCA [survivors of child abuse] recently wrote to the PAC raising concerns about Right of Place, an organisation which has received at least €2.4 million from the HSE since 2002, a further €1m from the Department of Education and funds from the National Lottery.

“We as a group have raised these concerns with the Department of Education and Skills and with the Residential Institutions Redress Unit in Athlone over many years,” Mr Hayes wrote to Bernard Allen, chairman of the committee.

“Indeed, the Alliance wrote to every councillor in Cork and asked that they please look again at the facilities in Lower Glanmire Road called Right of Place. We emailed the mayor also and asked that he withdraws the facilities at that address because of our concerns.”

Mr Walsh said SOCA and others had for “many years” been complaining about the “extraordinary conduct” of the group. Mr Walsh said nothing short of a full inquiry would suffice.

In a separate letter to HSE manager David Gaskin, who has sanctioned funding to Right of Place over the years, Mr Hayes asked why he was continuing to allow the “debacle” to continue.

“We have tried to raise the difficulties that we and other survivors were having because of your failures, we wrote to you and informed you of these, we visited Cork and held meetings with former residents to properly inform ourselves of the situation and then contacted you again, without any acknowledgement from you and others responsible for regulating or holding to account those responsible for the day to day running of Right of Place,” he wrote.

“You have done a great disservice to survivors. You have compounded this by your complete failure to act in a credible way with any integrity.”

The PAC said it had referred the matter to the HSE and the Department of Education for notes.

Meanwhile although Right of Place, founded by former Upton resident Noel Barry, claims to have 1,500 members, and has received funding on this basis, it is understood there may be far less than that.

Another former Upton resident living in Britain contacted the Irish Examiner saying he was a member of this group up to about a year ago.

“I notified Noel Barry that I wished my name to be removed from their databank. I never received a reply. Last week I received a letter from a Mr Michael Walsh, addressed to me as ‘Dear Member’, and which poses a few questions from me – just where did he get my address and details, and it would appear that his new group is simply taking over from where the old group left off. They will carry on receiving funding from the HSE, on the back of members they claim to represent, but it is so wrong, as they were never mandated to do this, and I certainly did not request them to represent me.”

© Irish Examiner Ltd. All rights reserved

‘UNANSWERED QUESTIONS’ IN ABUSE CHARITY’S FINANCES

‘Unanswered questions’ in abuse charity’s finances

Monday, November 15, 2010

By Jennifer Hough

JUST a few months ago a new board of directors was appointed to Right of Place, a charity for survivors of institutional abuse.

It was thought – and hoped – this would bring an end to the secrecy, unanswered questions and allow for a full airing of the facts, and an investigation into past actions which had seriously concerned members.

However, it has become clear this is not going to happen, and rather than facilitate this, the HSE seems happy to sweep it under the carpet.

Right of Place has been mired in controversy since last year when this paper revealed funding was not filtering down to the membership.

Now with the resignation of two of the new board and ongoing reticence from the HSE to investigate, it seems the only way forward is for the Public Accounts Committee to finally bring all the facts and figures together.

Abuse survivor Tom Brennan, stood down after just two months as the elected treasurer, as he maintains he was not comfortable presiding over the finances of an organisation with so many unanswered questions.

To say Right of Place in Cork has “unanswered questions” is putting it mildly.

Since last December this paper has repeatedly put those questions to the HSE, which funds Right of Place, and in the public domain.

Still no answers are forthcoming. Not even for the financial controller it seems. According to Mr Brennan he came up against an unwillingness to answer questions and an apparent lack of concern about finding out how millions of euro of taxpayers money was spent over the years.

“Looking at all the money which has been spent over a 10-year period I asked for a written record of who benefited, what was achieved and what the plan was. I asked the project leader Noel C Barry and was promised the information but I never received it,” Mr Brennan said.

“Every business has a business plan and upon that you can say fail, achieved or whatever the case may be.

“Apart from people who benefited from wages, meals, travel expenses, rent and the very small number of people who lived in Welcome House and Right of Place, there is absolutely nothing to show that anybody benefited from it.”

Examining the payroll system, Mr Brennan discovered there was four people who were being paid by cheque and not through the payroll system.

There was one employee out on long-term illness but who is still being paid – though again not through the payroll system so he could not see how much he was getting, and another man living in London getting €400 a week for running an office from his house where it is claimed he is running an advice service.

“I asked what this man had achieved over the years, what did he do, what progress had he made and I was told he repatriated three people.

“I told Mr Barry I wanted to see all the employee files. I asked that expenses had been drawn down, what entitlements were, who was out sick. On three occasions he was to have the information for me but it never materialised. He could not tell me how many people were employed there. I asked to see a database of membership, it never materialised.”

Mr Brennan then asked about an accountant.

“I met with the accountant who raised concerns. They said normally they charge €1,500 to €2,000 for an audit but for this year it was so complex it would be more than €10,000.”

A letter from the accountants to Right of Place, seen by the Irish Examiner, asks for copies of travel expense claims, purchase invoices, details in relation to cheque payments, copy of receipts in relation to petty case payments for 2009 and details of members assistance paid to individuals, among other things.

According to Mr Brennan, although Mr Barry had walked into a meeting one day and quit his post, it was later asked decided he should be allowed to “retire” rather than resign.

“This means he gets all his entitlements, I asked how could we let someone who had presided over this mess go away with a lump sum and a pension.”

At this stage, Mr Brennan was seriously considering about his own position.

“I was totally and utterly frustrated. I took legal advice and was advised by my solicitor to get out.

“I put it to the new board that if we did not get to the bottom of all of this then as the directors of a charitable organisation we could be held financially liable. My own solicitor told them this and they still would not believe it.”

According to Mr Brennan, the awkward questions he was asking were not going down well and it was about this time that his travelling expenses began going missing.

He saw this as a subtle but clear sign that he was to desist from trying to get to the bottom of things.

Did the HSE ever ask any of these very pertinent and important questions?

“I don’t know,” Mr Brennan said, “the HSE was very vague.”

Indeed, repeated requests to the HSE for answers simply refers the matter to the board, although this paper understands the HSE is only too aware of what is going on.

Of course, the underlying question, is why all of this was allowed to carry on for so long.

© Irish Examiner Ltd. All rights reserved