The legal presumption of public benefit should be retained, argued religious groups earlier this week.

Giving evidence to the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Draft Charities Bill, religious charities representing Hindu, Unitarian and Roman Catholic faiths argued that it is impossible to put a value on their work within communities.

Under current law states charities that aim to promote religious advancement are assumed to provide a public benefit unless evidence is presented to prove otherwise. Under the Draft Charities Bill this presumption will be removed.

Sister Anne Thompson, provincial bursar of the Catholic organisation, The Daughters of Jesus asked the committee: “How is the alleviation of loneliness, the comfort of panic or distress, the restoration of hope and the injection of humour into lives made dull and even intolerable by bereavement of isolation to be estimated?

“These changes will strike at the core of who and what religious congregations are, foisting upon them a new and secular identity. If the presumption were to be removed the consequences for religious congregations and the communities they serve would be catastrophic.”