Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 30 Nov 2023

Since the publication of the Shannon report, what has changed in St. John Ambulance? It was a damning report that highlighted the abuse of cadets. St. John Ambulance has changed little, if at all. What signal does that send to victims? How does that deter other organisations from protecting members in the event of children being sexually abused? How, as a country, do we allow there to be no consequences for current senior and former members of St. John Ambulance for the covering up of sexual abuse of children within the organisation? Questions arise as to what St. John Ambulance has done to change since Dr. Shannon's report has been published. It appears that there has been almost no change. Questions also arise as to letters sent to the Minister about changes to the board that seem not to have happened. The Minister might outline the changes he sees have happened since the Shannon report following his communication with it. Why has St. John Ambulance resisted legitimate legal claims from victims it has failed, which the Shannon report highlighted? Many questions arise, but there are few answers.

How can an organisation with this record, and in which the Minister has no confidence, still have access to the public, children and public funds? Mick Finnegan has campaigned on this issue for 20 years. He, along with the other survivors, is not going to give up. They feel deflated. It is almost a year to the day since the Shannon report was published and there have been no changes to deal with St. John Ambulance. It is still operating and still has access to children and adults. The board needs to step down in its entirety and a new board put in place. It is unacceptable.

I know the Minister is not happy with the situation. Nobody could be. We have to ensure that St. John Ambulance and the members who were complicit in the abuse face consequences. To date, there do not appear to have been any consequences for them. It is important that it does not get State funding. It has received direct State funding in the past. It is important the Minister and Government say to St. John Ambulance that it is not getting another single penny in direct funding from the State unless they see wholesale changes.

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. I recognise his ongoing interest in this and the survivors who are with us in the House today.

Officials from my Department continue to liaise with St. John Ambulance Ireland with regard to the recommendations arising from the independent review report by Dr. Shannon that St. John Ambulance Ireland commissioned. My officials are scheduled to meet officials from St. John Ambulance on 11 December to discuss the progress on the implementation of recommendations made by Dr. Shannon in his report. Those meetings have been taking place on a reasonably regular basis to get an understanding of changes that have been made.

There has been progress on the implementation of some of the recommendations set out by Dr. Shannon. My understanding is there has been a change of two board members, although if I have that wrong, I am happy for the Deputy to clarify that. When we last spoke about this, I highlighted the fact the new national lead on child safeguarding - an independent lead, which was one of the key recommendations - had not been followed up on, and I said I would not be fully satisfied until that was done. My understanding is the application process for a national safeguarding lead has been completed and the plan is to appoint someone in the coming weeks. Until that person is in place and is operating, I will not have full confidence in the implementation of these recommendations, but we are seeing progress, albeit slow, on the appointment of that role. That national lead will work with St. John Ambulance volunteers who operate the child protection policy and will report directly to the board of St. John Ambulance.

As the Deputy knows, there was a commitment to making quarterly reports on the progress made towards Dr. Shannon's recommendations by St. John Ambulance after they were published, and one quarterly report has been published. This evening, my Department received the most recent quarterly report, but neither I nor my officials have had the opportunity to go through it in detail. I will ask my officials to revert to the Deputy in writing on our view of it. My understanding is it will be published online on the St. John Ambulance website this evening, so he will be able to look at it himself, but I will nonetheless apprise him of our view on it. It is important for that element of accountability that we are seeing the publication of those reports.

As I mentioned, my officials will meet St. John Ambulance officials on 11 December. The fact there is a quarterly report will provide a good context in which to discuss whether measures have been implemented and what the officials mean in respect of various points, and if there are specific points the Deputy wants us to flag, we will be happy to do so.

I am very committed to seeing reform in this organisation and, most essentially, to ensuring the safety of children in the organisation, which was not provided for in the past, with the most grievous results for a significant number of children and young people. They had joined the organisation out of a sense of community and solidarity and a desire to help and were taken advantage of in some of the most despicable ways possible. That is why I worked with St. John Ambulance to ensure it did undertake a report, and I again recognise that the Deputy and Members of the other House have been crucial in that. We have seen progress, but more is needed before any of us can be satisfied.

I thank the Minister. When he says there has been progress, it is very hard for survivors to see what that is. Nobody is being held to account. In regard to the meeting of 11 December, what would the Minister consider the best outcome from that to be? When it comes to the FAI and gender quotas in sports organisations, they are told that if they do not meet a certain level, their funding will be cut. A similar approach needs to be applied to St. John Ambulance. It cannot be given funding when it has not implemented any clear change. There have been tiny tweaks but any change has been glacial.

I know this is an important issue for the Minister and he is very committed, but the difficulty is that people just do not feel as though it is going to go anywhere. It has been a year; who knows how much longer it will take? People should not have to wait years and years for justice and for the State to intervene and put in place structures that will prevent what happened to them from happening again. They do not see that at the moment and that is very disheartening for all the survivors. Likewise, it must be disheartening for the people who, as the Minister said, joined the organisation with the best of intentions that a group within St. John Ambulance are still there and are not being held accountable. That is a great pity for everyone, whether the State or the survivors themselves.

I will try to address two elements, the first of which is the issue of funding. As the Deputy knows, St. John Ambulance is not getting anything from my Department. Previously, I had said it was not getting anything from the State, but I have corrected the record and written to the Oireachtas joint committee in respect of the fact it did get significant one-off funding during Covid from a number of Covid funds, and it has also got some funding from local authorities. Nevertheless, it continues to receive no direct funding from my Department or, to my knowledge, from any other Department in the form of consistent, year-on-year funding. It has applied for certain one-off funds and some local authorities give it one-off funding, while some local authorities give it a donation in lieu of work at, perhaps, a big sports event or the like.

The Deputy asked who was being held to account, which is a very fair question. The role my Department now has is to oversee the implementation of the Shannon recommendations, and holding someone to account was not one of his recommendations. I have no doubt the Deputy feels it should have been, as others probably do too, but I can work only towards what Dr. Shannon said because my Department cannot work towards emotion, for want of a better word given I am not trying to minimise what the Deputy is saying. We have clear recommendations and we are working towards their delivery, and I have never promised to be able to go beyond that. As the Deputy knows, I do not have a lever in respect of St. John Ambulance and I cannot turn off any funding tap, as might happen in other organisations.

It is about engagement and the organisation has engaged with us and brought in the Dr. Shannon report. As I said, I have received the quarterly report and my officials and I will have the opportunity to go through that in detail in advance of the meeting of 11 December. If it is all right, I will write to the Deputy after the meeting and let him know how the engagement is going. He will have had the opportunity to read the quarterly report before that, and if there are any specific points he would like us to raise, he might let me know and we can try to do that.