Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the fact that the witnesses are here with us today. We all know the history we have in this country of child sexual abuse and it just seems that this is another organisation with another story and cover-ups. That is what it feels like to the general public, whether Scouting Ireland agrees or disagrees with the statement.

There are a number of elements involved. There is the present day and how Scouting Ireland will give people confidence going forward. As a parent of two, I recently decided not to allow my child to join the scouts. Some might say that is due to total paranoia on my part, but I honestly did not feel in any way confident in the organisation after everything that came out. I am generally a fairly reasonable and open-minded person but I still do not feel confidence in the organisation. One way Scouting Ireland could restore confidence is by dealing adequately with the historic cases and by being open to a genuine, independent public inquiry. That will not take away anything that happened to those people at all, which was horrific, and here we are again talking about horrific cases, but it would give people confidence and it would also give people the justice they deserve.