Logan DiFranco

The Peter McVerry Trust (PMVT), an Irish housing and homelessness charity, has recently been a regular subject of front page stories. Unfortunately, this is due to misgovernance rather than their work in the homelessness sector. The Approved Housing Bodies Regulatory Authority (AHBRA) published a report following an investigation of PMVT’s compliance with the Housing Act 2019. AHBRA’s report listed various issues including the following: PMVT’s asset register, and financial statements were not accurate; lack of oversight on acquisitions and expenditures; and potential conflicts of interest regarding suppliers and advisors. 

However, this hasn’t had much cut-through as we have discovered in our latest wave of research with the public in Ireland, nfpPublic Ireland. 58% of the public did not remember seeing anything about PMVT in the media recently. Of the 29% who did recall seeing something about PMVT, 68% of them said it worsened their view - mentioning the financial mismanagement and poor governance as reasons.

While there was not a lot of cut through for the stories on PMVT, there has been fallout from the organisation’s failures in governance and the €15 million state bailout specifically impacting trust and support. Before the AHBRA report, PMVT’s public trust and support were gradually increasing. Afterwards, however, the number of those who trust PMVT “a great deal” or “quite a lot” fell significantly, from 65% in May 2024 to 51% in December 2024. People who say they support PMVT is now at its lowest recorded level, only 7% as of December 2024. 

PMVT is just one example of several Irish charities that have taken the spotlight for the wrong reasons. But what’s the larger picture for charities in the Irish media? 38% of respondents from our December 2024 wave of research recall seeing, reading, or hearing about charities in the media recently. This is similar to the levels of recall in the UK (41%) and Canada (39%).

However, the tone of this coverage is more negative. 21% of respondents who recalled seeing, reading, or hearing something about charities in the media said it worsened their views. On its own, that’s less than one in four people in Ireland saying media coverage worsened their views of charities; however, when we compare this to the UK (6%) and Canada (3%), this is a significantly larger number of people in Ireland saying the media they have interacted with has had a negative impact. This has been a consistent finding in our Irish research, where those who can recall having seen charities in media have said that it negatively impacted their perceptions. 

While media coverage of charities in Ireland is more likely to have a negative impact, we have seen overall trust in charities grow. Those who trust charities “a great deal” or “quite a lot” has grown from 42% to 61% in the past three years. Respondents also increasingly see that charities are a force for good in Ireland, from 56% of the public to 68% in the past six years. 

How can we ensure positive media coverage? We have seen that the public appreciates regulation. Awareness of the Charities Regulator has grown from 41% in April 2017 to 62% in December 2024, while belief that the Irish charity sector is well regulated under the Charities Regulator has also nearly doubled in the same time frame. Trust in the sector and awareness of the Charities Regulator have both grown over the last few years. So, we have to ask; could talking about the Charities Regulator, and compliance with this regulatory body, improve trust not only in specific charities but in the sector on the whole? Let us know what you think.

For more about brand tracking and sector wide information in Ireland, consider downloading an information pack below or contact us at publicireland@nfpResearch.com