Teacher checks - Vetting delay a major child safety risk

AS thousands of young people return to school this week, along with 60,000 tiny tots in the classroom for the first time, parents will no doubt be disturbed to learn that nearly half the new teachers starting work are still awaiting garda clearance.

Under strict procedures designed to protect children from sexual or other kinds of abuse by people who have unsupervised access to them, vetting letters must be presented to schools planning to employ a newly qualified teacher or those returning to the teaching ranks after at least three years.

Essentially, the kind of information gardaí are trawling for involves previous court convictions or any pending prosecutions against an applicant.

Up to yesterday, according to figures from the Teaching Council, the body charged with responsibility for ensuring that members of the profession are cleared by the Garda Central Vetting Unit (CVU), only 1,300 new or returning teachers have so far been cleared to work with children.

On a more positive note, more than 2,400 newly qualified teachers have submitted applications for clearance. At least that marks a big improvement on the low level applications, 1,400, received by mid-July. In contrast, the current number of applications represents around 95% of Ireland’s annual crop of about 2,500 primary and second-level teacher graduates.

It is worrying that a loophole exists whereby those who are awaiting vetting can be employed to work with children on a provisional basis. This smacks of the kind of double standards which allow thousands of unqualified drivers to take to the roads.

This approach is in stark contrast to the scenario in Britain where school staff cannot be employed until vetted. Because of a backlog in vetting teachers, thousands of pupils have missed their first day back at school or had lessons disrupted.

Such a no-nonsense approach is understandable in view of the shocking murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman by Ian Huntley, caretaker of the local secondary school in the village of Soham in Cambridgeshire. His girlfriend worked as a classroom assistant in the primary school and it emerged that concerns about his past behaviour were not passed on to his employer.

The chance of a Soham atrocity occurring in Ireland is a chilling thought. If it takes months for the Irish authorities to process a few thousand teacher applications, the question that has to be asked is what happens when tens of thousands of other people working with children have to be vetted?

Not alone will teachers be covered, but also special needs assistants, childcare workers, members of the clergy, school bus drivers, not to mention the many thousands of volunteers working with youth and sports organisations, and to whom the care of children is entrusted.

It is no less important, as proposed by Education Minister Mary Hanafin, that an audit of enrolment numbers be conducted to ensure that immigrant children are not excluded because of racist attitudes.

There is an irresistible case for the Government to pour greater resources into vetting those working with children. As things stand, there are only 30 staff in the garda unit covering the entire country.

That is appalling when one considers the volume of work gardaí are facing and which, if anything, will escalate dramatically when the vetting process is further extended. As urged by the children’s charity Barnardos, the CVU must be strengthened significantly.

The immediate challenge is to process applications still in the pipeline. If that means working round the clock, then so be it. The safety of children is paramount.