Tom Clonan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I raise an issue on which I have been contacted by survivors of the St John Ambulance Ireland of an appalling scenario where young people, who were handed over in loco parentis and in good faith to participate in the activities and learnings associated with St John Ambulance Ireland and that public service, were sexually assaulted and raped. I know myself from the work I have done in this area with members of the Defence Forces the deep moral injury which is associated with sexual violence, particularly where trust is violated and where the survivor is a child.

Those survivors were written to by the judge who carried out the inquiry on 28 November 2022 and were told that the inquiry had concluded and that the recommendations had been issued. It is now 18 months later and despite the fact that the State is funding a safeguarding officer at St John Ambulance Ireland, those recommendations have not yet been implemented. That is a disgraceful and reprehensible state of affairs which is there in full public view. We as public representatives must hold St John Ambulance Ireland to account for this because that deep moral injury caused by sexual assault and rape, particularly of a child, is compounded by the moral distress of realising that the organisation concerned is not implementing the recommendations of the judge's report.I recall being in a radio studio with Colm O'Gorman of Amnesty International when he outlined the manner in which he had been groomed and sexually assaulted and how the trust that his parents had placed in a priest was betrayed. He commented on the statement that you should forgive the person who committed these offences. Colm O'Gorman said something that has stayed with me ever since. He said it is up to them to forgive themselves, but in order for them to forgive themselves, they have to admit or have insight into the wrongdoing. St John Ambulance is clearly an organisation that has not reached that state of self-awareness. The fact that it has not implemented the judge's recommendations is an insult to survivors and compounds their moral distress. I want a debate in this House about St John Ambulance, Scouting Ireland and all the other organisations that are recidivist and that resist the necessary changes required to safeguard our young people.