Cut child abuse risk, agencies urge

Child protection agencies say it is safer to source childcare workers in the North, where better records are kept of people known to have previously harmed children.

A triple checking system spanning two government departments and the Police Service of Northern Ireland makes it far more difficult for child abusers to fall through the cracks in the North, according to the Northern Ireland Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. “The Department of Health operates a pre-employment consultancy service (PECS) and keeps records of people who’ve been sacked for harming children. The Department of Education has a list called List 99, records of teachers not suitable to work with children and the PSNI has the criminal records list. It can be used by statutory and non-statutory childcare agencies. In the South, vetting is only available to the statutory sectors,” said NSPCC policy advisor Colin Reid.

Barnardos Ireland chief executive Owen Keenan said there was anecdotal evidence that people considered unsafe to work with children in the North were now working in the Republic. “Northern organisations have made us aware that people not cleared for childcare work in the North are coming here. They pass on whatever information they can to us, but at the moment it’s totally haphazard.”

Barnardos, on both sides of the Border, together with the NSPCC and the ISPCC, want the Government to tighten up the loopholes that weaken child protection.

Mr Keenan said they wanted common standards of vetting developed across the island.

“We want the Government to lead the way and impose responsibility on organisations to have potential staff vetted. We also went them to provide the resources for this improved vetting and to fund the gardaí for more comprehensive vetting procedures.”

Mr Keenan said it was easier to vet a person coming from the North to work in the Republic, than it was to vet applicants based in the Republic. A central vetting unit, at Garda headquarters, which began work in January this year, has processed up to 40,000 vetting and data protection requests in the past seven months, but it does not apply to voluntary or community childcare workers.

A spokesman for Justice Minister Michael McDowell said his department and the Garda Síochána were in discussions to find ways of extending the service to cover community workers and part-time employees.

The four main children’s charities, hosting a Beyond Borders conference in Dundalk today, have also called for improvements to the sex offenders’ register. In the North, only those sentenced there are obliged to register. In the South, convicted sex offenders from inside and outside the jurisdiction are obliged to register.

“We need a commitment from both governments to improve standards. There is no more appropriate area for cross-Border co-operation than in the protection of our children,” Mr Keenan said.