Ó An Roinn Leanaí, Comhionannais, Míchumais, Lánpháirtíochta agus Óige
Foilsithe
An t-eolas is déanaí
Teanga: Níl leagan Gaeilge den mhír seo ar fáil.
Check Against Delivery
I welcome this evening’s debate on Scouting Ireland. There are many in this House who, quite rightly, have remained vigilant in respect of Scouting Ireland.
I will listen carefully as I value the knowledge and expertise of colleagues who bring an insight from meetings with survivors, children, parents and volunteers of Scouting Ireland.
I understand that members of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children and Youth Affairs continued this forensic work yesterday.
This type of scrutiny is appropriate and I believe it is the reason why we are all elected to represent the people in our communities.
As Minister for Children and Youth Affairs I have found the information and learning which emerges from the Committee Hearings to be helpful in respect of decisions that I have to make about Scouting Ireland.
It was interesting to hear the Chair of the Committee note that after Tusla, Scouting Ireland is the organisation that the Committee has spent the most time on.
This reflects the level of concern of public representatives about how the organisation is currently being run, its recent history and the legacy issues that it is dealing with.
It is 22 months since I became aware of serious issues in relation to the governance of Scouting Ireland. My department and I have scrutinised the operation of the organisation to ensure firstly, that today’s children and young people are safe when they are in the care of Scouting Ireland.
The second issue that is of most concern is dealing what went on in the past in relation to the two legacy Scouting organisations – the Catholic Boy Scouts of Ireland and the Scouting Association of Ireland.
I would like to deal with today’s children, first.
The Governance arrangements in Scouting Ireland up to October 2018 were dysfunctional and blinkered.
I am using a simple definition of governance and that is “the way a group of people do things”.
The first warning bells about the way things were being done in Scouting Ireland were sounded in February 2018 through a report in the Irish Times. It gave details of how those in authority in Scouting Ireland dealt with an allegation of rape by a volunteer.
Senior members of Scouting Ireland responded inappropriately. The then Board of Scouting Ireland, in my opinion, failed in their duty to respond to this behaviour by its senior volunteers.
With little confidence in the Board, I suspended State funding.
Over the following few weeks, the decision to suspend funding was, sadly, reinforced by the continued poor judgement of the then Board.
I would like to state clearly that there were senior people in Scouting Ireland who were not involved and really stepped up to the plate to reform the governance of the organisation.
They did this despite some internal opposition and were key to ensuring that Scouting Ireland was put on the right track. They should be commended for this.
They committed to reforming the structures of Scouting Ireland and they achieved this.
That was and continues to be the start of a long road back for Scouting Ireland.
A significant step was the full external governance review conducted, on my behalf, by Jillian Van Turnhout. She applied her considerable expertise to reviewing the governance of Scouting Ireland.
Ms Van Turnhout’s report set out a pathway for Scouting Ireland to address the shocking deficits in the organisation.
She submitted her review to me in June 2018 and Scouting Ireland reported to me last month that they have implemented all of these recommendations in full.
I have asked Ms Van Turnhout to examine if this has been done comprehensively and she will report back on this early in the New Year.
Last year I agreed to provide funding to enhance the safeguarding capacity of Scouting Ireland. This has allowed the establishment of a permanent Safeguarding Manager to support the wider Safeguarding Team.
I have met the Safeguarding Manager and I know he appeared as part of the delegation attending the Joint Oireachtas Committee yesterday. I was impressed by his experience and his single-mindedness in ensuring that Scouting Ireland is a safe organisation for children.
Scouting Ireland is close to full completion of the strategic actions agreed with Tusla in March of this year.
I understand from senior colleagues in Tusla that they are satisfied with their engagement with Scouting Ireland. This assurance is critical and will be critical into the future.
It is a reality that the level of scrutiny of Scouting Ireland is intense.
It has to be and it will continue to be.
Deputies will be aware that as Minister I have extended public funding to Scouting Ireland until April next year.
Restoration of funding after then will be dependent on certain developments.
My officials and I meet very regularly with representatives from both the Board and the Executive of Scouting Ireland.
I have requested and received regular updates around safeguarding and governance issues in the form of detailed progress reports, all of which have also been shared publicly.
We scrutinise these reports very carefully and use our meetings with Scouting Ireland to clarify details in the report.
My officials and I met most recently with Scouting Ireland on the 6th November where I welcomed progress made to date.
Jillian Van Turnhout’s assessment on the implementation of the recommendations from her report will be key to the decision to restore funding.
Past abuse has ruined, and continues to ruin lives.
We witnessed this through the heart-breaking testimony of survivors of abuse on the RTÉ Investigates programme, ‘Scouts Dis-Honour’ three weeks ago.
These men dug deep to summon the strength to tell their harrowing stories – to share with us the catastrophic effect the abuse has had on their lives.
While the programme confirmed information that we have been aware of for some time – including the significant numbers of children who were abused, and the clear failure to keep them safe while in the care of previous scouting organisations – hearing the story in the words and the voices of those who were abused is something that will remain with me.
These children were failed by those who should have protected them from the criminals that abused them.
One cannot help but wonder if those who failed to protect these children were motivated by loyalty – not to the children – but to the organisation.
It would not be the first time. We are trying to make sure it is the last.
It is a fundamental legal requirement that all cases of child abuse must be investigated by the relevant statutory authorities, irrespective of when they occurred and/or when they were reported.
Strong governance and safeguarding policies and processes must be in place in all organisations for children and young people.
Scouting Ireland’s role – as set out in law – is to forward pertinent information, evidence and records to the relevant authorities, that is An Garda Síochána and Tusla, for them to carry out the appropriate investigation.
Ian Elliott has been commissioned by Scouting Ireland to review historical sexual abuse in scouting in Ireland.
I am aware that some Deputies believe that because Mr Elliot was contracted by Scouting Ireland in a Safeguarding Role, that his work on this report is not considered to be independent.
Regardless of your views on this I believe that this report is fundamental to the next steps that we as a government and as an Oireachtas take in relation to Scouting Ireland.
His report will set out the evidence which has emerged in recent times, the actions taken by the organisations at the time by the Catholic Boy Scouts of Ireland and the Scouting Association of Ireland.
It will outline the learnings for Scouting Ireland as it seeks to continuously improve its safeguarding.
It is my opinion that this will be an important analysis for all of us to consider. I know that the Report will also be shared with the Joint Oireachtas Committee.
I expect to receive it in February. In order to give myself and my official’s time to digest it, but also to give the Committee the opportunity to scrutinise it, I have decided not to make a further decision on extending funding to Scouting Ireland until March.
I am aware that there have been calls for a form of statutory inquiry into the handling of abuse in the scouting movement and I am, of course, giving this question very careful consideration.
I am interested in Members views on this.
Moving forward, everybody involved in activities with children and young people has a moral and legal responsibility to keep them safe.
Children have a fundamental right to be safe from abuse and harm.
We have introduced laws and regulations to protect them, and I introduced mandatory reporting of suspected child abuse almost two years ago next week.
But we also need to be vigilant. Those that shared their stories on RTÉ Investigates were not given the protections that they should have expected, and have carried the consequences with them into adulthood.
The people who abused them are guilty of a heinous crime. Those who should have safeguarded and protected them from the abusers also bear guilt.
To conclude, it is clear that the past presents us with fundamental failures that we must face up to. We must support survivors to heal. We must hold perpetrators to account.
The present challenges us all - challenges that we must rise to. We must not simply write policies and procedures.
We must not just talk about keeping children safe. Rather, we must all live and breathe safeguarding as our number one priority.
All of this vital work will be to ensure a future where children and young people can enjoy the very significant benefits of being involved in youth organisations, whilst being kept safe and protected from harm at all time.
ENDS