Ms Kate Duggan:

On the letters of comfort, the correspondence that was referred to in the media in 2019 was correspondence issued to a Deputy in response to a specific query about an individual case, so it was not a letter of comfort to St. John's Ambulance.

The Deputy's first question was on the allegation in 2013. That was the allegation I referred earlier to in respect of having to investigate the allegation against an individual. We went through what was the process at that time in how we would investigate that and I already apologised for the delay in that.

On our child protection standards and St. John's Ambulance, we could not say today we are assured. Dr. Shannon's report has made significant findings about the culture of the organisation and we all know it takes significant time to change a culture in an organisation. As I said, I met the CEO and the chair of the board and there are going to be some changes in the board membership and the director-executive of St. John's Ambulance, but I am assured by the fact they have accepted the full findings of the report and have accepted all the recommendations. They have agreed to implement all of those, particularly with respect to the appointment of a national safeguarding lead for St. John's Ambulance and they have committed to meeting us quarterly to update us on the implementation of those recommendations. All that provides a level of assurance at this point in time, but we continue, and our children first information officers continue, to engage with the organisation on its policies and procedures.

On the question of Tusla being given additional powers to inspect, I will not repeat myself for reasons of time, but we talk about powers, rules and legislation. They create an expectation, but they do not on their own protect. What we are saying is this is about how we as a State collectively promote a culture of safeguarding and of child protection in all organisations, whether they are State-funded. That is the challenge. If we look internationally, in some countries the charities regulator has a function in that and in others it is around local and regional safeguarding committees. It is a conversation to see whether we need more powers or additional resources to maximise the powers we have. I firmly believe the most fundamental thing is how we push the resources we have into awareness to ensure everybody who works with children and families understands what they can do and that if anybody has a concern they should refer the matter to Tusla.