Charity Regulator examines dismissal of Order of Malta board – The Irish Times
The Charity Regulator is examining a recent decision taken by the Order of Malta to dissolve its board and is seeking information on who is currently in control of the first aid provider.
A senior figure in the international organization of the Order of Malta, FJ McCarthy, was effectively sacked from the board of the charity’s Irish branch early last month. This prompted the regulator to write to the body seeking information on who Mr McCarthy was and how he had the power to dissolve the board.
Mr McCarthy was appointed by the religious organisation’s headquarters in Rome last June to oversee the Irish organization following controversy over a former volunteer, who was found guilty of sexually abusing two teenage boys.
Scott Browne (32), from Co Kildare, was jailed for 9 and a half years after pleading guilty in 2020 to sexually abusing two 15-year-olds in separate incidents in 2018. Another Kildare volunteer, Jordan Murphy (22), was jailed for 5½ ½. years this May for aiding and abetting Browne.
At the end of the court proceedings, the board, known as the council, commissioned a full internal investigation into the case and wider child protection standards. The organization had received two prior complaints about the volunteer allegedly sexually assaulting young men in its ambulance corps, but he was not removed as a volunteer until gardaí began investigating the abuse of the two teenagers.
‘Steering Group’
There were tensions between the council and Mr McCarthy over the status of the review, which was completed by October. Some in the council were pushing for board members to get a copy of the report, but Mr McCarthy said it first needed to be sent to figures in Rome for approval.
Mr McCarthy, a businessman based in New York, took the decision to dissolve the council on November 2 and instead set up an “executive leadership group”. The members of the organization have not yet been told who is responsible for this group.
The regulator sought copies of all correspondence between Mr McCarthy and the council, as well as correspondence from him to grassroots members. She also requested the financial accounts of the order for the past year and the minutes of the board meetings for this year and last.
The order did not respond to requests for comment on the regulator’s correspondence.
In correspondence with rank and file members at the time, Mr McCarthy said he was left with “no choice” but to dissolve the board and that the leadership group “ensure continuity in governance” and “efficiency of purpose” in the organization.
In a decree on November 7, the order’s headquarters in Rome delegated to Mr McCarthy “full powers of ordinary administration” to lead the Irish organisation, given the need for further “drastic intervention”. .
The decree, issued several days after the council was dissolved, said that its new powers were backdated to the beginning of the month and that those of the “president, board of directors, the assembly and any other body of the Irish association are suspended” while Mr. McCarthy is in place.