Peter McVerry Trust was ‘verging on total collapse’ – former CEO

Updated / Thursday, 20 Nov 2025 10:52

The former CEO of the Peter McVerry Trust has accused the previous board of the company of providing him with financial details that “could not have been further from the truth”, saying when he took over the charity “was verging on total collapse”.

Francis Doherty, who was CEO from June to October 2023, outlined the situation at the start of a day of meetings over what happened at the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee today.

The committee is meeting to examine serious concerns over the well-known charity’s financial situation, housing purchases, transparency and other matters.

In his opening address to the committee, Mr Doherty said “on the face of it the trust was hugely successful,” saying it had more than 1,000 properties, an annual budget of more than €60m, helped more than 2,000 people every night and “played a crucial role in addressing some of the most challenging situations in society”.

Mr Doherty said for him and others who had worked in the charity for a number of years, “the trust was more than a job,” and “appeared to be in good stead”, as it was under the oversight of the Charities Regulator.

He said that when he became CEO in summer 2023, “I was advised by the board that it could not be handed over in better health”.

However, “within weeks” he said “it became clear that the board’s representation could not have been further from the truth”, with the charity’s finances “in such a poor state that within each passing day it became clear it was verging on total collapse”.

Mr Doherty said at that time the charity’s creditors were owed €9.6m, Revenue €6m and banks €2m.

He said the organisation “had €437,000 across all bank accounts, zero in cash reserves, and just €127 in a sinking fund”, when he had been told it should have had “more than €5m”, in various service-specific bank accounts.

Mr Doherty said he later became aware much of the cost issues were due to the charity “bidding substantially less” for housing than “what it cost to run the service” related to that same housing, saying “the scale of the crisis” means “it has taken over two years and yet the finances are still not resolved”.

Mr Doherty said in his view there is a question over “how a board remains credible when in mid-August 2023 they wrote to the charities regulator saying they were full compliant”, and asked why the charities regulator “did not intervene”.

He said: “I have no doubt that if not for the steps I took in those days then Trust would have collapsed.”