Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)

This Saturday will mark the tenth anniversary of the death of Aoife Winterlich who was a 14-year-old girl. She went on a trip with Scouting Ireland. The trip went on an unplanned excursion to Hook Head during a storm, which was not properly supervised. She fell in the water and drowned. A report commissioned by Scouting Ireland found there was no failure in its duty of care. Last year, however, after a long time, Scouting Ireland finally settled a court case that Aoife’s mother took against it and accepted liability. Since then, Scouting Ireland has refused to apologise for a failure of duty of care. In correspondence with Scouting Ireland, it says it is sorry for the loss of her daughter but it refuses to apologise for any failure in its actions. It has also not relooked at its report. It had a report that found it had no failure, but then it later accepted liability. It raises questions whether there are any lessons learned into the future for the organisation. Scouting Ireland is in receipt of public funds and I am asking whether any possible pressure can be applied on Scouting Ireland to do the right thing, apologise to Aoife’s mother for its failure and commission a new report.

See this speech in context