The Charities Regulator, the independent statutory body for registering and regulating charities in Ireland, has published its 2025 annual report.
The report shows there were 681 concerns relating to charities raised with the Regulator in 2025, an increase of 38% on 2024 (493 concerns).
This is slightly above the five-year average for the years 2021-2025 (603 concerns).
Of the 681 concerns received in 2025, more than 80 related to matters not within the Regulator’s remit.
Concerns about governance standards continued to be the most common type of issue raised with the Charities Regulator, accounting for almost 40% of total concerns last year, similar to 2024 (42%).
Among the governance concerns that were raised were instances of:
- dominant behaviour where an individual in a CEO, Chair or Founder role was reported to have exercised excessive control over the charity’s governance and operations
- charity trustees not being provided with information from the charity’s executive management when requested, such as detailed financial reports
- charity trustees not overseeing the running of their charity adequately.