Public urged to be aware of bogus charities.

The public are being urged to be aware of bogus charities, fake door to door collectors operating in North County Dublin. All charities operating in the Republic of Ireland must be fully registered on the Register of Charities. It is an offence for an unregistered charitable organisation to carry on activities in the State. The Charities Regulator welcome information which may indicate non-compliance with the Charities Acts, you can check if a charity is registered and also you can raise a concern about a charity here www.charitiesregulatoryauthority.ie

The ISPCC has warned people to be wary of bogus collectors after reports of door-to-door collections which were not authorised by the charity in north Dublin and Meath.

The collections are understood to have taken place in Rush, Lusk and Portmarnock in Dublin and Laytown in Co Meath. The charity has said that it "never encourages" cash collections at the door following the reports.

In a statement on its website, the charity said: "The ISPCC has had reports of people going door to door collecting money in the Rush / Lusk, Portmarnock and Laytown areas, allegedly on behalf of the ISPCC.

"Charities" using crowdfunding websites such as Gofundme need also to be registered and all charities can be searched HERE