A charity at the centre of a Garda money-laundering investigation spent more than €1 million acquiring additional fixed-terms assets over a four-year period, according to court documents.
The High Court on Tuesday appointed provisional liquidators to Liberty Recycling Training and Development CLG following an application by the Charities Regulator as part of a petition to wind up the organisation.
Established to support those with addiction, the charity last week saw the seizure of luxury cars and watches by gardaí, with a value of €300,000.
A petition by the Charities Regulator to the High Court states it has “very serious concerns that the operations and bank account of the charity are being used for purposes which are unlawful”.
“Additional fixed assets totalling €1,052,028 were acquired by the charity over the four years from 2022 to 2025. There are no loans, lease finance or hire-purchase finance arrangements mentioned in any of the financial statements. The bank account is not in overdraft at the end of any financial year,” the petition states.
“It appears therefore that these acquisitions would have to have been paid for from the cash flow generated by profits of the charity.”
The petition adds that this “cannot be reconciled” by a response from the charity’s trustees that it owned “seven vans and a car all aged between four and 19 years old, two second-hand forklifts, a conveyor belt and a baler”.
The regulator highlighted the purchase of a Porsche in 2025 and a 2026 BMW Jeep which were registered to a company called Liberty Developments.
Those vehicles were in the possession and control of a senior staff member of the registered charity, which the regulator said “is highly irregular and deeply concerning activity for a charity”.
The regulator also said it was “curious” that the charity’s accruals increased by €389,149 from 2022 to 2023, and then reduced again by the same amount in 2024.
Gardaí have also been investigating alleged suspicious transactions being routed through the charity. They comprised substantial international transfers of funds which were not commensurate with the level of activity taking place in the charity, it said.
In its petition, the regulator said it was concerned that “if the charity is not wound up on an urgent basis, there will be further damage to the charity, its service users, assets and the reputation of the charity sector as a whole”.
Based at Bluebell Industrial Estate in west Dublin, Liberties Recycling has nine charity shops in Dublin, Limerick, Waterford, Wexford, Ennis, Bray, Mullingar, Drogheda and Cork.
It sells used clothes, shoes and textiles through these shops and through clothes markets in developing countries.
The High Court documents state there is “no evidence to suggest that the trustees are involved in, or aware of, any alleged criminal activity”.
However, the regulator said trustees allowed separate non-charitable, corporate entities to be set up and conflated with the operations and assets of the charity, describing this as a “complete failure of governance”.
The regulator raised concerns the trustees had not suspended senior employees pending the investigation, or taken step to “protect the charity or its assets”.
“Their approach to dealing with continuing cash receipts is particularly concerning,” it added.
On Tuesday, Judge Brian Cregan appointed Shane McCarthy and Cormac O’Connor of KPMG as provisional liquidators following a one-side only represented (ex parte) application by James Doherty, counsel for the regulator.
In a statement, the Charities Regulator said the appointment of a liquidator placed executive control of the charity into “independent hands”.
This would “enable transitional arrangements to be put in place to support the charity’s vulnerable service users and employees, and to secure the assets of the charity and their transfer, if possible, to another charity with a similar charitable purpose,” it added.
Source: The Irish Times · Shauna Bowers
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