Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 24 September 2025
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Arts, Media, Communications, Culture and Sport
Safeguarding Policies and Procedures within the Football Association of Ireland: Discussion
2:00 am
Mr. David Courell:
Yes. I believe we do fantastic work in safeguarding, within both the organisation and our community. We are driving day in, day out for stronger standards. Our FAI club mark programme, just looking across the grassroots game, has been in place since 2017 and has been inching closer and closer to full compliance. We have made that mandatory from early 2026 as part of that. Not only do clubs and the volunteers themselves have a legal obligation to be vetted and safeguarding-trained; we will audit each and every one of those clubs to enable them to gain that club mark process or that club mark mark. Our colleagues from the Department or Sport Ireland may have a view on it, but we are absolutely doing good work in the safeguarding space, and that should be recognised. I thank not only our staff but all the volunteers who help enable that system to work for us.
No comments