Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate that, but it would be good to have Scouting Ireland's perspective. As yet, there has been no articulation or contact on the terms of reference and how the investigation, whatever it will entail, will proceed. We are, therefore, still a little in the dark in that sense.

I refer again to the issue of governance. Reference was made to a new board of directors. Dr. Lawlor is subjecting himself to an internal process to appoint a new board of directors to reflect the new realities in which he finds himself. That is not an appropriate way in which to proceed and he should subject the board's governance procedures to an external review, whether it is the van Turnhout review or another.

I refer to the public, individual scout leaders, scouts, cuts and volunteers, in particular.

How are they going to be confident, if they are not fully confident at present, that the new board of directors has clean hands and will result in a new culture with stronger and more robust governance procedures? I have questions about whether there have been documented complaints made by volunteers - this is adult scout leaders - against members of the board, right up to CEO level, or other staff, or whether there have been allegations of bullying, for instance. Have reports been commissioned by Scouting Ireland to examine complaints and the mechanisms by which it can resolve those complaints in a mediated fashion? Have the reports been published and have they been provided, for instance, to all parties involved? Those are just some of the questions that are still on our minds, which have not been presented to us here as representatives of taxpayers' interests in relation to the submissions today. We do not know if there are any legal cases open against the organisation by volunteers for alleged harassment, for instance. If we are talking about change management and if it is a change management structure from within and the board is hoping to bring all of these people with it, I suggest that it does not necessarily have the confidence of a lot of people in the organisation on the ground. I am a layman in this regard but my perception is that what the board is trying to do is to give effect to change internally and trying to manage it internally using the same people and the same resources.