Mr. Brian Lee:

Section 11 of the Children First Act requires implementation of a safeguarding statement. It is the responsibility of the organisation to implement the safeguarding statement across it. From that perspective, an organisation such as Scouting Ireland needs to have systems and processes in place to implement it, be it having particular leaders, managers or senior staff responsible for implementing the safeguarding statement completely in every part of the organisation, particularly in each den. It should also have a system whereby it can evaluate and audit the systems and processes in place to assure itself that it is fully compliant with all aspects of the safeguarding statement and that, if it identifies gaps, it can put implementation plans in place to address them. Full responsibility for compliance with thes safeguarding statement lies with the organisation which needs to be assured that it is in place.