“Scouts is much more than camping and cookies,” says Sean Sheehan, chief executive of Scouting Ireland. He is speaking inside the organisation’s national office, a three-storey building designed in the likeness of a pitched tent.
The strikingly tall building is the first man-made imposition that appears after a long, winding drive through country roads to the national campsite in Larch Hill, on the foot of the Dublin/Wicklow Mountains.
This 88-acre site was bought in 1937 and chosen over a large plot in Santry, which would ultimately become Morton Stadium. Chief scout JB Whelehan’s “foresight saw that the Santry site would become part of the city far more quickly than its southside counterpart”.
Eighty-eight years on from the acquisition, Larch Hill is being encroached upon by ever-creeping suburbia, now neatly accessible via Dublin’s M50 motorway. While potentially lamented by their scouting forefathers, it is this newfound proximity to urban life that speaks to Scouting Ireland’s next frontier: finding its footing in modernity.
RM Block
It is an organisation steeped in tradition, one often embodied by the scout’s promise and handshake. Like many other institutions of its ilk in Ireland, it has been faced with revelations of historical child sexual abuse.
After entering public consciousness in 2018, by 2025 around 70 legal cases alleging child sexual abuse were brought relating to the Catholic Boys Scouts of Ireland and the Scouting Association of Ireland. (Both organisations merged in 2004 to form Scouting Ireland.) More than 350 people have reported being sexually abused as children in the two founding organisations.
The 2018 revelations pre-empted a slew of scandals at board level, ranging from no confidence in members to doubts around the organisation’s financial sustainability. Public funding was paused by the then minister for children and youth affairs, Katherine Zappone, and was reinstated under conditions of board restructuring.
In 2017, Scouting Ireland’s government grant amounted to €876,337. By 2024, it had risen to €1,653,000, with some of this being “ring-fenced safeguarding funding”.
When Sheehan took the helm as CEO in September 2024, he was faced with the tall task of restoring order to the organisation. Nearly one year into his post, Ireland’s scouting community now hopes to break new ground as an institution that continues to deal with its past while looking forward to the future.
First introduced to scouting via his three daughters who were involved from a young age in their local north Dublin den, Mr Sheehan says: “As a parent, you ultimately have to help, so you become a volunteer yourself. I quickly became a cub leader and then ultimately developed to become a group leader,” he says
That role saw him manage everything from administrative meeting minutes to risk assessments on camping trips.
Upon being appointed Northern Ireland regional manager at Bank of Ireland in 2012, he left Dublin as well as scouting. “Little did I know that it would resurrect itself at a later point in my life,” he says. Just over a decade later, he returned to both.
“I had finished my banking and financial services career. I had taken a bit of time out and I wanted something different, I wanted to give back,” he says of applying to the CEO position.
He, naturally, is complimentary of Scouting Ireland’s work, although he recognises its faults as much as its limits. “Clearly we have a past,” he says. “A past that we need to deal with in a supportive, sympathetic and empathetic way. And we’re committed to that, we’re committed to making sure that we’re doing right by survivors as an organisation and that we support them in every way.”
Mr Sheehan notes, however, that in his view, the issue of historical child sexual abuse isn’t one that impacts people starting their scouting journey. “It’s current in the national psyche, but not current at the local level,” he says.
“At no point was the local scout group ever under pressure because of the past. It was always ‘we know our group leader, we know who they are, we know all about them and we’re really happy and comfortable with our kids being a part of their scouting journey’.”
For survivors, it took decades for the past, and the truth, to catch up with their abusers. Many of them don’t consider Scouting Ireland’s reaction to be up to scratch. Solicitors representing them say Scouting Ireland has been aggressively contesting any legal case taken by survivors.
[ Abuse survivors left waiting too long for redress from Scouting IrelandOpens in new window ]
For his part, Mr Sheehan said he is focused on implementing a safeguarding approach that “is more than just protecting, but means actively creating space where everyone can feel respected”.
He says “any engagement [with survivors of historical child sexual abuse] is tailored, survivor-led and trauma informed”. He “cannot talk about any legal cases or process outside of recognising the right of survivors to pursue this course of action and their bravery in coming forward”.
However, Mr Sheehan added: “It is important to state that Scouting Ireland is and has been active in settling cases and has made significant progress in the last six months, with more progress planned over the coming months.
“In my view, we have a national champion framework now around safeguarding. We have governance, we have policies, we have a team, and skills within that team.”
It is a big organisation; there are nearly 40,000 scouts across the island. But what Scouting Ireland doesn’t have, in Mr Sheehan’s view, is enough funding. “We’re very grateful for the financial contribution from our Government, he says. That money makes up about 30 per cent of Scouting Ireland’s annual finances.
He believes funding should be greater, saying: “Do I believe personally – and I’ll always talk personally about these things – that it reflects positively the role we play in society? I don’t. I don’t think it values our volunteers, I don’t think it values our societal contribution and the social capital that we bring.”
For him, the scouting experience develops young people into the country’s next leaders. “Before you’re 18, you’ll lead an expedition, you’ll be leading a diverse team, you’ll be respecting the outdoors, you’ll be surviving the outdoors. You’ll understand the difference between ethical leadership and a value-based system and how you bring that value-based system into your life.”
Dealing with the youngest generation has its own set of unique challenges, Mr Sheehan admits. He says Scouting Ireland has developed personal development programmes aimed at combating the types of radicalisation targeted at young people.
“Think of it as an antidote to the Andrew Tates of the world,” he says in reference to the online influencer known for far-right and misogynistic views. “We think about some of the challenges we have in society today, [we] think about radicalisation. We’re already creating programmes and training our leaders to work with those challenges.
“But we can only do that in the communities that we’re in. We could be in so many more communities, but again, funding is a part of that constraint,” Mr Sheehan says, citing “10,000 kids on a waiting list that want to get into scouting”.
“If funding can be addressed, I think we can do a lot more. The Government needs us to do a lot more, too. I think of those socially disadvantaged communities and the inner cities, and us adapting our programme to that urban environment. With the right funding, we can do that.”
Sheehan often says “scouting is the answer, what’s the question?”. He adds: “Young people come out of scouting with leadership skills, with critical thinking. They’re problem solvers, they’re change makers, they understand their role in society and a value they can bring to it.”
