Showing Concern

“Nothing you have done was ever done for thanks or recognition but on this anniversary it is only right that we stop for a moment and take time to acknowledge all that has been done, why it has been done, how it has been done and the wonderful people who, in a huge variety of ways have been the hands of Concern's work.”

So said President Mary McAleese as she hosted a packed reception at Áras an Uachtaráin to commemorate forty years of the Irish charity.

One of the attendees who knows better than most the difference that Concern makes globally was Dublin 15’s own Richard Dixon, a Concern veteran who works tirelessly to raise both funding for and awareness of the work of the charity.

Richard, who grew up in Edgewood Lawn, worked in the Blanchardstown area during the eighties on community projects but was obliged to emigrate for a number of years due to the lack of career opportunities. Returning home at the start of the new decade, he joined Concern in April 1990 and has seen most aspects of the group’s work at very close hand.

“I have had some amazing experiences with Concern,” he remarked. “I have been sent to the Iran / Iraq border region. I have seen service in Kosovo and Tanzania, Kenya and Sudan and have seen first hand what a difference a charity like Concern can make to the people of disadvantaged areas.

“For the past five or six years though, I have been based in our Dublin Head Office, trying to spread the message as widely as possible.”

A former station manager and founding member of Phoenix FM, Richard now lives in Tyrrelstown and is the chairperson of the Irish Charity Tax Reform Group. “We are working to create a tax environment that actually encourages philanthropy,” he explained. “Very few people realise that charities have to pay VAT on everything, the same as everybody else. St. Vincent de Paul, for example, had a €3 million VAT bill in 2006 and some charities have to launch fundraising drives simply to pay their VAT!

“We have been lobbying the Government constantly to redress this situation and will continue to do so.”

On his day out in the Áras, Richard, who is also a leading light with Phoenix FC, was full of enthusiasm. “It was a wonderful day and a great opportunity for Concern to publicly thank all the people who have helped out, either with time or financially down through the years.

“The number of people who have volunteered their talents and time in different ways must run into the thousands. They have been deployed in many ways, such as aid workers in emergency disaster situations and development specialists in the world’s poorest countries.

“But there have also been countless unsung heroes who have made that work possible and helped highlight the issues facing the world’s poorest people by raising funds and awareness back here in Ireland. They too have made an essential contribution to Concern’s efforts to support victims of war and natural disaster and tackle extreme poverty and it is those people in particular that were being commemorated in the birthday celebrations,” said Richard.

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