A Sunday Tribune investigation into leaflets and stickers that are left into people's houses found the vast majority are not registered charities and don't have waste collection permits. Each 'charity' consists of one or two individuals who are making vast profits out of the free goods and clothing received from home-owners. Meanwhile, legitimate charities are losing money as a result.

"The people who do these collections are on extremely dodgy ground, " said a garda spokesman. "But anyone who tried to prosecute them would be on dodgy ground as well, and these operators are well aware of that. If they say they are a registered charity when they are not, then that is fraudulent. But if they simply say they are a recycling service, there is nothing much that can be done."

Until someone makes a complaint about the collections, he added, they have no line of inquiry to follow.

The Sunday Tribune found information on 18 different clothing collection companies which are operating in Dublin.

Many operate outside the capital with households in Meath, Kildare and Wicklow a particular target. These companies have gone from door to door leaving in stickers or leaflets to residents and asking them to leave their unwanted clothing and household textiles outside their houses at an appointed time.

All of the leaflets claim to be providing assistance to some charitable cause . . . African orphans, Ukrainian children, poor families in developing countries and in Ireland.

"Having been working in Ukraine since the 1990s after news swept the world revealing a country where the conditions we found were nothing short of horrendous, we were determined to try and help some of the large number of orphanages filled with thousands of seriously neglected children, " proclaims one leaflet from a company called Second Life, which has two different appeals circulating at the moment.

Despite having charity number 391493 printed on the leaflet, Second Life is not registered with the Revenue Commissioners and charity number 391493 does not exist.

Phone calls to both mobile numbers listed on different leaflets for the company went straight to voicemails that are not currently working.

"When you do a little digging on these collectors, you will find that there is very little information available from them, " said Dublin City Councillor Naoise O Muiri, who found that most of the textile collectors he came across did not carry waste collection permits from the council. "It is all extremely murky. From what I have found, there is no charitable output in the end.

Instead, these clothes are being sold for cash, mainly in eastern European countries."

All of the leaflets contain mobile phone numbers only.

When contacted by the Sunday Tribune, the phones rang out, were turned off or went straight to voicemail. No one returned messages. Only one company, the 'Unwanted Clothing Company, ' answered the phone. A man claimed it was not a charity, but a recycling service. Clothes were sent to the Ukraine and sold in second-hand shops over there. He could not say where the profits went.

Care and Concern in Action provides phone numbers that do not exist, while the African Orphan Association quotes the UN Declaration of Human Rights on its leaflet. "There are organisations operating these collections that are vague or ambiguous about the nature of their business or their charitable status, " said a spokeswoman for Enable Ireland. "Unfortunately, the general public donate goods and clothing that they believe are for charitable purposes."

Currently, there is no legal framework for the registration of charities in Ireland and only those applying for tax exemption are registered by the Revenue Commissioners. The charities regulation bill, which is due to be published next year, will go some way towards policing bogus charities, but will by no means make it impossible to continue collecting. And in the meantime, whose job is it to control bogus collections?

"In my view, while county councils issue waste permits, waste falls under the category of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the responsibility ultimately lies with them, " said O Muiri.

"Until they take action on this issue, the problem is only going to get worse."

However, the EPA said door-to-door collections are nothing to do with them.

"Where clothes are collected, the agency believes that the clothes are not being discarded and rather, a charitable donation of garments that are fit for purpose is made, " a spokeswoman said.

Meanwhile, leaflets and stickers continue to land in letterboxes around the country and, despite repeated calls from charities for people to avoid making donations to these unrecognised charities, the lure of emptying the house of unwanted junk is too much for many.

"The best thing for people to do is to go that extra yard and make the trip to their local charity shop, " said O Muiri. "Otherwise, they're not helping anyone and they're doing damage to legitimate charities."

Charities hit by donation decline DONATIONS to legitimate charity shops have decreased due to the presence of bogus charity groups who collect clothes and sell them on for profit.

Charities have reported a decline in donations from members of the public due to the increased number of bogus charity groups operating clothes collections in urban areas. Donations to charity shops have also been hit by the growing popularity of internet auction sites such as eBay.

The growing number of these bogus charities is a major cause of concern for established charities such as Barnardos, Oxfam and the Simon Community, who rely on donations from the public to keep their shops stocked.

Charities have warned the public not to donate clothing to any group not affiliated with the Irish Charity Shops Association.

According to Trevor Anderson, Retail Manager at Oxfam Ireland, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of door-to-door collections being carried out by fraudulent charities over the last 12 months. These collections have had a "significant" impact on donations to Oxfam.

"The public are being given the impression that the money raised from the sale of the stock collected by these organisations goes to charity, when in many instances it does not, " he says. "We would advise the public if they want to be sure that their donation of stock is benefiting a charity, they should either take it to their local Oxfam shop, another charity shop or only give it to those charities that carry out door-to-door collections and whose collection material bears the Irish Charity Shop Association logo".

However, in some instances bogus charities have used advanced techniques in order to make the public believe they are a legitimate charity. According to Noleen Hartigan of the Simon Community, a group reproduced Simon Community plastic bags and distributed them in Waterford last year.

"It is a big worry because people donate clothes to these groups in good faith, " said Hartigan. "In many cases, we suspect that they are sold on in an unethical manner. By selling these clothes on to the African market, these groups are flooding the market and damaging local sellers."

Collette Miller of Barnardos says that she has alerted gardai on several occasions after seeing bogus charity groups collecting clothes. In some cases, groups have driven ahead of the Barnardos team and picked-up clothes intended for Barnardos. According to Miller, this practice has had a very negative impact on donations to Barnardos charity shops over the last 12 months. Miller advises people to make sure that any group they are contributing towards is affiliated to the Irish Charity Shop Association.

False charities face fresh legislation FRESH legislation to tackle bogus charities and increase transparency in the charity sector will be published by the government early next year.

The Charities Regulation Bill was approved by the government last March and is set for publication "early in the New Year", according to the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs. Noel Ahern, minister for state at the department, first declared his intention to introduce charities legislation in 2004.

The new legislation will appoint a regulatory authority to monitor the charity sector and will also force charities to publish accounts. The public will be able to monitor how much money each charity spends on administrative costs and how much goes towards charitable work, while any group falsely promoting itself as a charity will be liable to criminal prosecution.

Under the new law, all charities will be obliged to register with the new Charities Regulator and to sign up to a Code of Good Practice in relation to practices and procedures.

The announcement of fresh legislation was made partly over fears that bogus charities were operating within the sector and partly due to unease surrounding the growing number of professional fundraisers . . . or so-called 'chuggers' . . . in operation.

Chuggers are paid either a set amount or else on a commission basis, depending on which charity they are employed by.

Under new rules, charities who employ on-street collectors will be forced to reveal how much of the money they raise is paid out to fundraisers and how much is directed towards charitable work. Full published accounts will also reveal how much money each charity pays in staff wages and other costs. It is hoped that this will allay public concern at how charities use money donated to them.

The government approved the Charities Regulation Bill last March and sent it to public consultation. A report on the 85-plus submissions received noted a "split between those in favour of banning commission-based fundraising completely and those who felt that disclosing the fact that a commission is being paid would be sufficient to allay public fears".

In its submission, the international charity Unicef warned that it was important "not to stifle charities with bureaucracy and administration". The religious lobby group Cori also warned that any new legislation "should not be so onerous as to preclude charitable bodies from using public fundraising as a source of funding".