Health workers wait six months for Garda vetting

GARDA vetting checks on key health workers are taking up to six months, despite the same probes being carried out in Britain within just 10 days.

Significant extra numbers of civilian staff are needed by the Garda Central Vetting Unit (GCVU) as the number of people it is checking has soared from 187,864 in 2007 to 246,194 in 2009.

Fine Gael education spokesperson Brian Hayes believes the 83-member GCVU, which includes 77 civilians and six gardaí, needs to be exempted from the recruitment ban and expanded as it risks being “overwhelmed” by demand.

Mr Hayes said delays are particularly stark in regard to GP replacements, who are having to wait up to six months for clearance, compared to 10 days in Britain.

“The time-lag between vetting and people taking up their posts needs to be shortened dramatically.

“General practitioners who have been accepted by the HSE at interviews are waiting in access of six months for their Garda clearance to be approved, therefore causing a lot of problems in an already over- stretched health service,” he said. “In the UK clearance is processed within 10 days.

“This should be outside the confines of the moratorium on frontline recruitment. That is a stupidly blunt instrument which needs to be refined. There needs to be more supervision. They really need to get a grip on this backlog.

“And we also need to look at the fact there is a whole section of people in schools who have never been, or who are in the process of being vetted, but still work with children. That needs to be prioritised,” he added.

The Justice Department would not break down figures for health workers, but said the average time-lag between people being appointed to positions and getting clearance varied between five and 12 weeks depending on the volume of demand at that time.

“The GCVU provides employment vetting for a large number of organisations in Ireland registered with the gardaí for this purpose and which employ persons in a full-time, part- time, voluntary or training capacity to positions where they would have substantial, unsupervised access to children and/or vulnerable adults. This would, of course, include many healthcare professionals.

“Additional time may be required to process an individual vetting application in cases where clarification is required as to the details provided or where other enquiries need to be made, for example, when the person in question has lived and worked abroad.

“There will always be a reasonably significant time period required to process a vetting application,” a parliamentary reply to Mr Hayes from Justice Minister Dermot Ahern said.