Vetting unit to focus on voluntary workers

TEACHERS, classroom assistants and volunteer youth workers are likely to face garda background checks as part of a review of vetting procedures for people working with children.

But the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (ISPCC) has warned until the proposal becomes practice, children remain at risk from abusers.

The ISPCC yesterday opened a public petition which aims to collect tens of thousands of signatures from around the country to present to the Government when the Dáil resumes in the autumn.

The How Can We Be Sure They’re Safe campaign has the backing of well- known children’s groups such as the Chernobyl Children’s Project, the Barretstown Gang Gamp and the National Council of Voluntary Childcare Organisations.

Organisations like these can not get garda clearance for prospective staff and volunteers because of legal uncertainties and a lack of garda manpower.

A Central Vetting Unit was set up at garda headquarters in Phoenix Park in January last year and processed 70,000 checks on health board staff, residential care workers and other personnel in its first year alone.

But ISPCC chief executive Paul Gilligan said an

estimated 30,000 people were working with children voluntarily at any given time without having undergone any thorough checks to ensure they had no criminal convictions and had not been the subject of complaints.

Under the existing arrangement thousands of teachers, classroom assistants and other professionals are not checked which

Mr Gilligan said presented “massive child protection implications”.

He said the experience of the Special Olympics, when 30,000 volunteers were checked by the gardaí, showed vetting could be carried out without difficulty and he called for the immediate allocation of extra resources to the Central Vetting Unit.

A garda spokesman, however, said the Special Olympics was an exceptional case and procedures were being drawn up to handle checking requests.

He said in addition to health board staff and other selected professionals, the unit checked out candidates for foreign adoptions, applicants for the army, gardaí and other police services, jurors and people in certain jobs with security implications.

“What has happened is we get requests from the likes of a young lad who is told by his local shop he can have a job if he gets garda clearance but that was never what the unit was meant

to be about and we can run into difficulties under the Data Protection Act if the information we give out is improperly used,” he said.

A working group comprising senior gardaí, justice department officials and other experts was set up a year ago to review the law and procedures.

The spokesman said it was expected to make recommendations before the end of this year.

“No decisions have been taken but it will be extended and the unit will be expanded,” he said.