Mr. Martin Burbridge:

In Northern Ireland, we have worked with the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland, CCNI, and each group is registered in Northern Ireland as a separate entity with CCNI. We are working towards that in the Republic of Ireland. We have not yet been called forward by the charity regulatory authority to do that on a group-by-group basis. Scouting Ireland itself is registered with the Charities Regulatory Authority, CRA, in the South. We have chosen that based on an extensive review that was carried out and a report that was delivered to us by an very eminent company of legal advisers. I am not sure whether I can name names but I will not name the name. We have a report which sets out why we should go that route. The reason is that we want our scout groups at local level to be independent to make their own decisions on how they can be responsible for and run their own affairs and for us to provide services, such as programmes, that they can avail of and participate in, etc. It is important that it is not one size fits all. As for what is good for a community in Donegal or in Belfast or in the South of Ireland, there are regional and local differences that we must acknowledge and we encourage them to do that.

We are providing training for the offices of those groups to make sure that they can manage their affairs correctly. We are providing support for them through this registration process with the CRA. We are, however, still waiting to deal with the CRA in some depth on how that might happen because, needless to say, with more than 400 groups in the South of Ireland, there is quite a big administrative issue involved. We are, however, working with the CRA to try to achieve that.