Tusla to defend role over St John Ambulance abuse controversy

The State child and family agency Tusla is to maintain there was no information to suggest “evidence of systemic abuse” within St John Ambulance when it previously provided assurances about the first aid organisation.

Kate Duggan, interim Tusla chief executive, is to tell an Oireachtas committee that an independent report by Dr Geoffrey Shannon SC had “rightly raised questions about child protection practices in St John Ambulance”.

The report, published last month, found the voluntary organisation had for years previously failed to act on internal concerns that children were being sexually abused.

Dr Shannon said the organisation had failed to intervene despite significant knowledge of risks posed by a former senior figure in its Old Kilmainham division in Dublin, who is now accused of molesting more than 16 boys between the late 1960s and 1990s.

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The report was also critical of current child-protection standards, criticising shortcomings in the organisation’s Garda vetting system and raising alarm at several contemporary child-protection cases.

Senior Tusla officials are due to appear before the Oireachtas committee on children and youth affairs on Tuesday afternoon, to answer questions on the controversy.

Tusla had investigated allegations from two men that they had been sexually abused by the former senior figure in Old Kilmainham as children, and it deemed both to be founded.

However, in correspondence in 2019 the agency said it did not believe abuse had been systemic, and that officials had no concerns about current standards in St John Ambulance.

In the fallout of the report, several politicians and survivors questioned the clean bill of health Tusla had given the organisation, given Dr Shannon’s findings.

The independent investigation by Dr Shannon was commissioned in early 2021, as more survivors came forward following reporting in The Irish Times detailing the past abuse allegations.

In her opening address to the committee, Ms Duggan is to state Tusla has to date received 11 referrals from survivors who alleged they were sexually abused in the first aid organisation, between the 1960s and 1990.

Five of these reports were made to a helpline Tusla set up in the wake of the Shannon report.

The Tusla chief executive is expected to tell committee members that information available in 2019 “did not at that time suggest evidence of systemic abuse across the organisation”.

Ms Duggan is to outline that as more survivors came forward in late 2020 the agency had pushed St John Ambulance to commission an independent review.

“While we did not have the power to direct them to undertake this investigation, we were satisfied that they had taken this action,” she is to say.

In a recent meeting with Tusla and the Department of Children, St John Ambulance had indicated it accepted Dr Shannon’s findings in full and his recommendations for reform.

The organisation, best known for providing first aid at sports matches and other events, had agreed to provide an update every three months on how reforms were progressing, Ms Duggan is to state.

The Tusla chief executive is also expected to commend the “bravery” of survivors who came forward to share their “harrowing experiences” of abuse in St John Ambulance.

“The trauma that they have experienced, volunteering in an organisation to whom their care was entrusted, and one in which they trusted and expected to feel safe yet suffered, is clear and they are very much in our thoughts at this time,” she will state.