Mairead Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein)
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479. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if he will provide an update on the implementation of the recommendations of the Elliot Review, given the civil action that has been taken against an organisation (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [57307/22]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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The Deputy's question refers to an independent learning review commissioned by the organisation, the purpose of which was to examine the historical reported instances of sexual abuse to identify learnings for the organisation going forward.

Separately, the Department as a provider of substantial grant funding to the organisation took a number of steps to satisfy itself in relation to current safeguarding and governance within the organisation. The Department required ongoing reports from the organisation relation to the process of governance reform.

In 2018, the Government commissioned an independent review of governance within the organisation, as well as a follow up review, published in May 2020. The latter found that the recommendations of the 2018 review had been satisfactorily implemented, while identifying a small number of outstanding matters to be addressed in a subsequent report by the organisation to the Department, which was delivered in September 2020.

These independent reviews and follow up reports in addition to ongoing engagement between DCEDIY officials and the organisation indicate that safeguarding is now a strong focus and priority for the organisation and that robust safeguarding and governance structures have been put in place, in line with the recommendations of the reviews.