Dr. John Lawlor:

Organisations on the scale of ours must always be mindful of the challenges that arise. We did some calculations to give some sense of the level of activity as against what will arise. We estimate that we did in excess of 220,000 young people overnights last year, if that makes sense. If we multiply the number of young people by the sections by the weekends it certainly is in excess of 220,000. That simply could not work if we did not have a robust educational method that worked. We could not take that many young people away and not have untold disasters unless we knew what we were doing, and our volunteers know what they are doing. They operate through an educational method that is well established and has served scouting and Ireland for more than 100 years. It is well acknowledged internationally as the finest non-formal educational method on the planet. It is within the context of this method that we work with young people. We build an environment of trust, kindness and responsibility. This is inherent in the scout programme. It is the basis on which they work with us and with the adults who work with them.

Of course, incidents will arise and we have to deal with them properly. We have to be open to learning. Children First is a huge opportunity for us to establish a new benchmark in safeguarding for Scouting Ireland and for the sector. We have to see that an organisation such as ours will always have incidents that will need to be reported. We will need to take learnings from them and ensure in what we do going forward, if we can, that the same problem cannot arise again. Young people are developed in scouting to care for each other and work with adults in a team-based environment. This is the essence of the model. In essence, this is at the heart of keeping young people safe. Young people are safest when they are secure in a peer learning environment where they can trust the peers they are with.