Meetings in Dublin tomorrow of Scouting Ireland CSI and Scouting Ireland SAI, at which merger proposals will be discussed, are closed to the public and the media.
Members of Scouting Ireland CSI, formerly the Catholic Boy Scouts of Ireland, will meet at the National Basketball Arena in Tallaght. A vote is not expected until about 4 p.m. Scouting Ireland SAI members will meet in the O'Reilly Hall, UCD, at noon. Its members are known to favour merger. The CSI body has 22,500 members, while the SAI has 8,000. Membership in both is over 95 per cent Catholic.
The CSI's national council voted for merger by a three-to-one majority last year, but that has to be ratified by a two-thirds majority vote tomorrow. However, a vote in favour could still be vetoed by the Catholic bishops. They have expressed concern because of a perceived threat to the Catholic ethos and property considerations.
The merger proposals follow a five-year consultation process which began in May 1998. Mr John T. Murphy, chairman of a steering committee set up by both scouting bodies to prepare merger proposals, said then: "What has accelerated the move towards a merger is the Good Friday agreement." It had created a climate whereby ideas which would normally have taken years to bring to fruition were being acted upon now, he said.
"Young people today are not interested in the colour of the uniforms or what religion their colleagues belong to. What they are interested in is scouting activities," he said.