Tom Clonan (Independent)
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For example, I have an 18-year-old daughter. She is doing her leaving certificate. There is not a hope in hell that she would apply to join the armed forces of a certain country. If she did, I would say not to join the armed forces of a certain country because it is not a safe place for women. My question for the witnesses is, is an organisation with the types of risk factors that have been revealed in published, on-the-record reports, with its systemic risk factors and its culture, a safe place for a young person, a child or a young adult? That is the best way I can parse that, without mentioning the organisation.

The other question relates to the concept of giving Tusla greater powers. In everything I have heard thus far, Tusla seems to have inherited a corporate culture that is really predicated on moral legalism. The capacity for existential action, ethical and moral leadership, and moral courage seems to be absent in the descriptions of how Tusla dealt with these allegations. In regard to that, in the absence of the enhancement of powers, is there not a case for Tusla to learn from this and to engage in more public moral leadership and for an absolute revisiting of the way in which Tusla practices its leadership? I do not get this idea that there was no evidence it was systemic. This was in 2019. We know that systemic abuse and systemic risk factors exist in other organisations. We know, for example, sexual violence and harassment exist on university campuses, affecting one in four and, in some cases, one in three. For anyone in 2019, on foot of a very cursory examination of an organisation such as that, to come to the conclusion that the risk is not endemic or systemic speaks to me of a culture that is too rooted in a narrow, deterministic, minimalistic, legal approach. That is not the kind of leadership we need, I would argue. If it is child centred then it has to be proactive and robust. I do not know if the witnesses want to comment on that because it might cast some of their predecessors in a particular light.

Other organisations were mentioned in which Tusla is collaborating with an Garda Síochána because there is a suggestion, and based on the threshold on which it seems to operate, that seems to me to be a serious risk. Are those organisations identified in the public domain? If not, why not? Should the parents, guardians and carers of people who are possibly sending their children or dropping them off to these organisations not be aware that these criminal investigations or these preliminary inquiries are under way? I do not know, as a layperson, whether there is any impediment to that. I cannot imagine there would be. For example, it is all over the newspapers that An Garda Síochána is going to investigate a member of a rival investigating organisation. There does not seem to be any inhibition or impediment to that kind of information being put out there in the public domain. Those are the four questions. I thank the witnesses for their patience.