Mr. Brian Lee:

Every relevant organisation that works with children is required to have a child safeguarding statement. In March last year, Tusla set up the compliance unit for this and when we made contact with Scouting Ireland in November 2018 we received its child safeguarding statement. My team did an assessment of the statement and there were some gaps in its risk assessments, as well as missing information. The philosophy of the team is to bring services to compliance. It is about supporting organisations to improve their safeguarding practices, etc. In the months after this, Scouting Ireland improved its safeguarding statement and we were able to deem it compliant. It is important to state the difference between compliance with the statement and compliance in terms of practices on the ground. The Children First Act specifies compliance with a statement of intent and every organisation that works with children has been required to be compliant with that since March last year. It is like a health and safety statement on the wall of an organisation's offices - it does not necessarily affect practice on the ground.