Vital youth projects ‘jeopardised’ as Garda vetting backlog hits 60,000

A BACKLOG of 60,000 Garda vetting applications for people working with children is keeping them out of work for longer and stalling youth projects across the country, it has been claimed.

While the Department of Justice says the average processing time for vetting applications is in the region of 10 to 12 weeks, Youth Work Ireland (YWI) claims applications can take up to eight months to process.

Michael McLoughlin of YWI said short-term projects which need volunteers are being put in jeopardy because people cannot get vetted in time.

Another issue emerging is that people who already have Garda clearance must be re-vetted if they want to work or volunteer for a different organisation.

Youth Work Ireland has called on the Minister for Justice to address the issue as a matter of urgency.

The group also called for a system of “mutual recognition” to be put in place to ensure that when a person is vetted by one organisation, they can consent to the sharing of this fact until fresh vetting takes place.

“The original idea of Garda vetting was to ensure better systems and protection for all children and young people,” Mr McLoughlin said.

“Now it has become a major barrier to many voluntary groups doing frontline work with these young people.

“The delays of often up to eight months effectively make the system null and void. For short-term work like summer projects, approval simply cannot be achieved in the timescale of the project. Whole swathes of frontline work simply cannot be covered by the current system of Garda vetting which must raise serious child protection issues.”

Fine Gael’s Alan Shatter said as of August 30 he was aware of 380 vetting applications from the HSE awaiting Garda clearance, some of which were social workers and people who are waiting to complete inter-country adoption assessments.

“A number of them had been waiting for five months. Some of those who are seeking clearance to obtain employment in the HSE are the social workers who are needed in our dysfunctional child care services,” he said.

“I have spoken to people who are seeking to effect adoptions but are having to wait while the HSE works through the vetting process. People who have offered to do voluntary work in sports clubs have found weeks passing into months without vetting being conducted,” he said.

Gardaí anticipate that 325,000 vetting applications will be made this year.