Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 13 March 2019

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children and Youth Affairs

Governance and Child Safeguarding Issues in Scouting Ireland: Tusla and Scouting Ireland

Mr. Jim Gibson:

Certainly. Through our interactions and work with Scouting Ireland, we received an action plan that was dated February 2019. In terms of the Chairman's question as to why we were concerned that Scouting Ireland was not compliant, in the organisation's own documentation, actions Nos. 10 to 13, inclusive, were marked as being "on hold". These related to safeguarding structures and policy and the organisation's own monitoring of and compliance with same. Those issues, along with other issues that we have discussed here today, resulted in the correspondence that we issued on compliance and non-compliance. It is a question of compliance with policy, procedures and practices but let us not throw the baby out with the bath water. We must have a balanced approach. Scouting Ireland is demonstrating progress in all areas. There is a very comprehensive safeguarding statement there but when our staff looked at the action plan, they had concerns around it.