The Garda unit charged with vetting employees to work with children and vulnerable adults is to get 25 extra staff, Justice Minister Alan Shatter has announced.

The Garda vetting unit does not have the resources to check all people working with children — including childminders and voluntary sports officials.

The State’s human rights watchdog wants the Government to row back on plans for mandatory vetting of all people working with children and vulnerable adults.

Employers will face up to five years in jail if they fail to seek Garda vetting for an employee who works with children.

Significant shortcomings in the proposed new law on the vetting of people working with children have been identified by children’s charities.

Caretakers, cooks, administrators, and bus drivers who work in organisations with school-going children will not have to be vetted under proposed legislation.

TELLING employers that a potential employee may pose a risk to children, even though he has not been convicted of any such crime, may be in breach of the Constitution.

The Government's summer holidays begin officially later after Ministers hold their final meeting of this session.

THE Vatican’s effort to deflect blame for the cover-up of child abuse in Cloyne has been dismissed by Justice Minister Alan Shatter.