Statement regarding Safeguarding matters within The Presbyterian Church in Ireland
Rev Dr David Bruce. Convener of the General Council.
Ensuring the safety of all those who take part in the life and work of our congregations has long been a priority for us. In the day-to-day life of the church and linked organisations, Ministers, leaders and designated persons who hold safeguarding responsibilities within our congregations work solidly to make safe arrangements for children and adults across our church. They are supported in this role by the Safeguarding Team based in Assembly Buildings, who both organise safeguarding training and provide professional advice in difficult situations. Indeed, the Taking Care guidelines implemented by PCI some years ago provided a robust framework for safety in our congregations.
Our current Safeguarding Team has identified a number of situations between 2009 and 2021, with one as late as 2022, where our central Safeguarding function failed to deliver an adequate safeguarding service to our congregations, linked organisations and people who asked us for guidance. In most instances, there was a basic failure to follow our own Taking Care guidance. These failings were magnified by major gaps in necessary recordkeeping, so it is inevitable that we have not identified all situations where practice was unacceptable.
The failures identified to date include:
- situations where we failed to make referrals to statutory authorities when these were required;
- situations where we did not respond adequately to concerns expressed to us about individuals in congregations;
- situations where we have failed to respond to people who, having suffered harm, have sought our help;
- situations where some offenders returning to worship in Church, following referrals to us by statutory bodies, were inadequately monitored.
The person with lead responsibility for this work during these years is no longer in post. The leadership of PCI is working closely in support of our current Safeguarding Team members to both follow up with those who have been let down where possible, and to improve our safeguarding governance arrangements and practice.
To address these failings, we have taken the following main steps.
- We have liaised with appropriate statutory bodies in relation to both the overall failings identified, and individual poorly-handled situations where appropriate.
- All situations where offenders requiring supervision when worshipping with us have been reviewed and appropriate arrangements have been put in place in each case.
- We have increased our staffing dedicated to safeguarding, and have reviewed and are updating both policies and procedures. You will appreciate this is an ongoing process that will continue in the months ahead.
- We have put in place arrangements for people who contact our Safeguarding Team to escalate their concerns if they believe they have not been responded to swiftly.
- We have enhanced the training curriculum being delivered to church leaders locally and our central staff in Assembly Buildings.
- We are currently refreshing our governance framework and arrangements for raising concerns about practice, also termed whistleblowing, within our central staff team.
- We have set in place regular external cross-professional supervision for our Safeguarding Lead and Director.
- We have implemented Practice Standards for Safeguarding, reporting against these to a revised oversight body to the General Council, which I convene.
- We are commencing an audit of our safeguarding arrangements against a framework devised by the Safeguarding Board for Northern Ireland (SBNI) and we will submit this audit to SBNI once it is complete.
Above and beyond all of these necessary steps however, rests our primary concern, which is the people who have been harmed, otherwise placed at risk, or simply didn’t hear from us when they needed help or guidance. We have let you down, and for this I am truly sorry. It should not have happened. I want you to know that we will do everything we can to both put in place better arrangements to prevent this occurring again, but importantly to put the appropriate help and support in place for you now.
Anyone in our congregations or those more broadly associated with us, either now or in the past, who may have been impacted can contact us directly through a dedicated response line, or email address. The details are Tel Number +44 (0)28 9041 7308 or via email: [email protected] These details will also be on the PCI website and we are available to take calls from 9am on Thursday 13 November 2025. (Edit: 15/12/25. Please note, the Safeguarding Response Line is now closed, please visit here for further contact details.)
I would reassure anyone contacting the team that they will be listened to, heard and responded to, as they should have been previously. Our response team, trained to take a trauma informed approach in this extremely sensitive work, will be able to both screen situations in terms of possible ongoing risk and work with individuals to access the most appropriate support for their needs. In the short-term, we have commissioned an arms-length pastoral support and counselling service able to provide a faith-based or non faith-based service, according to the preferences of individuals affected by this situation. For the longer-term, we will be engaging with individuals impacted by this failure to develop an enduring support arrangement for people involved in church safeguarding-related situations.
To conclude, I say to you, the members of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland and others associated with us now or in the past, our failure in doing what you have charged us with doing, is without excuse.
I ask you to pray – that those who have been harmed might find healing in the time ahead, and that together, we might recover the qualities of caring compassion which lie in our heart as a people, but which through these evident failings have been so seriously compromised.
