Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein)

I thank the Minister of State for being here. I want to draw to his attention what is not happening within Scouting Ireland. The problem is this is a legacy issue that goes back to the 1980s. I went to the one of the same schools as many of these people did. It is about abuse and a specific teacher who got ten years in jail for raping young boys predominantly as a schoolteacher, a scout leader and a scout commissioner for the diocese of Cloyne. He also ran the summer camp in Mount Melleray. Back in 2018 or 2019, Scouting Ireland put out a notice asking that anybody who was affected by this should make contact with it so those people who were directly affected by this individual could engage in a process where they might get some solace. However, I met with a survivor very recently and he told me that back as far as 2019 he contacted Scouting Ireland but he has never heard anything from the organisation. At the time he was a minor so Tusla was involved. The individual told me he would have a better chance emptying the Red Sea with a bucket with no ass in it than getting any help from Tusla. He has told me Scouting Ireland has changed its legal team, possibly twice, since 2019 when he brought the abuse to its attention. His legal team, which he has to pay, feel they have been stalled and they cannot get any answers to this. This was reported on a number of times and I will quote one or two of the headlines to give the Minister of State what was in the public domain. One was "Man repeatedly raped by teacher in classroom as an 11-year-old boy seeks apology over vile attacks". That individual when he was old enough - because, again, he did not get any answers - left the country and tried to make a new life for himself somewhere else.

The unfortunate thing is that I know four, possibly five, who left as well over the craic with this, but they left through suicide.

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