Mr. Martin Burbridge:

What happened was that I was managing the change management, if one likes, and when these issues came up it was felt that I was an appropriate person to try to encompass this to make sure that we did not leave any gaps and that we did begin to deal effectively with a lot of the issues Deputy Sherlock has raised. I have a lot of experience in dealing with these things. For many years I was involved in IDA Ireland. I was secretary to the board and I was responsible for governance there. I have been on various committees at world scout level, at European scout regional level and in other business areas so I do have a reasonable amount of experience in dealing with all of these issues.

I share Deputy Sherlock's concerns in the sense that we do need to make sure that we bring our membership with us but we also need to have an element of external review. If that amounts to there being an appointee by the Minister or some other person, we will welcome it. We need that difference and external view being brought into our board to make sure that it is more open to things and is not internalising all the time. That is one of the problems we have had. I know that because for six years I led the board of Scouting Ireland, but it was long before some of these issues emerged. We were a new organisation finding our way in different times. There are things we need to do. We have looked at how the best global not-for-profit organisations work. We have worked with our colleagues in various countries around the globe, in Australia and New Zealand among others. I could name a range of countries. We have done a lot of work and that is why it has taken us so long. We have consulted with our membership and I believe we can bring them with us.

As regards the other specific questions Deputy Sherlock asked, I am not in a position to answer them personally as I have not been a board member and I do not have access to that information.