Mr. Mike Corcoran:

I thank the Deputy for her question and I might address one of the points which Senator Seery Kearney raised. The policies, procedures or the compliant child safeguarding statement exist at a point in time and are not the totality of the providers' responsibility. They are simply the first step in creating a proactive safeguarding environment. If we are going to advance beyond paper-based compliance and its existence, and I am not suggesting to the Senator these are not important points, because they are, we must, when we talk about culture and complacency, address complacency through ongoing governance, ongoing training of staff and understand that the policy or the existence of a policy is one of a period of safeguards and is not the safeguard.

In the development of any organisation, therefore, especially many of those moving from volunteerism into a more professional space, the first challenge they face is implementing frameworks. The second, then, is keeping those frameworks alive. The purpose of a child safeguarding statement is an articulation of the ongoing commitment an organisation is going to make. The creation of a statement in itself is a regulatory compliance matter, but I refer to making it a living and breathing document which will have a positive impact on children. This is what we all want. We want there to be positive impacts on children and for children to be safe. This requires all organisations to understand that safeguarding is not a singular action but an ongoing one. Addressing complacency, in all its forms, is very important in this regard.