A report has revealed that Scouting Ireland was conscious that there was a high chance of sexual abuse compensation claims being made against it as far back as 2018.
These revelations come following a report revealed the systematic failure of Scouting Ireland to prevent child abuse and ensure the safety of its members.
On December 10th, 2018, former board chairperson of Scouting Ireland, Aisling Kelly informed a group of senior Scouting Ireland volunteers that there was a chance that legal actions submitted against the organisation linked to “extensive, prolonged, and at times organised child sexual abuse”.
It has been reported in The Irish Times that Scouting Ireland recently agreed a compensation settlement in excess of €100,000 for a man who alleged he was sexually abused when he was a member of the CBSI as a child. In addition to this Scouting Ireland has moved to move aside a fund of €2.5 million to pay forthe costs of legal claims and cases from survivors.
The report, complied by child protection expert Ian Elliott, revealed the outcomes and recommendations It was commissioned to complete by Scouting Ireland and showed up the extent of the historic abuse at the scouting groups and described how the act failed to act in the interests of the young children iun their care.
Scouting Ireland issued a public apology to the victims following the publication of the report. Scouting Ireland ChairAdrian Tennant said that since learning of the abuse scandal Scouting Ireland had moved to “own” responsibility for addressing the past failings of the group
The report referred to the environment of the scouting groups in Ireland which showed widespread “cronyism” and an absence of adequate governance. This, it claimed, allowed cases of child abuse to go unreported to the proper authorities. Scouting Ireland was labelled a “seriously dysfunctional organisation”, with “sex offenders dominating the leadership for decades”. The report said that there was a “systematic failure” of the organisations to maintain appropriate records of reports of alleged child abuse allegations.