JP McManus charity donates €10.5m

A CHARITABLE foundation set up by businessman JP McManus donated €10.5 million to causes in Ireland and abroad last year.

Accounts filed to the Companies Registration Office show the JP McManus Charitable Foundation Limited received submissions from 263 charities in 2009 and donated €10,569,011 to 143.

In existence since 2000, the charity, the directors of which include Mr McManus’s wife Noreen and his daughter Sue Ann Foley, donated €160,000 less in 2009 compared to 2008. The accounts state the charity received €1.3 million in investment income in 2009 but recorded total losses for the year of €7.9 million.

The bulk of charitable funding in the year was spent on education, with the foundation donating €9,227,688 to the All-Ireland Scholarships Fund set up by Mr McManus in 2007. The scholarships cover full-time education and are awarded to students from disadvantaged backgrounds, on the basis of Leaving Cert results.

Mr McManus is known to have also donated to Respect, a Daughters of Charity service for people with intellectual disabilities, St Munchin’s Family Resource Centre in Limerick, the Southill Area Centre Ltd in Limerick, and Direct Aid for Africa.

A prominent figure in racing, Mr McManus visits Ireland regularly from Geneva, Switzerland, and is non-resident for tax purposes. The JP McManus Invitational ProAm which took place at Adare in July also supports charities in the mid-west with €55 million raised since the golf tournament’s inception in 1990.