merrion street

The need for the Minister Justice and Equality to outline the steps he is willing to take to ensure that delays associated with the Garda Vetting regime will be abated if not extinguished.

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Speech by John Perry TD for Alan Shatter TD, Minister for Justice, Equality and Defence

First of all I’d like to thank the Senator for raising this topic. The Minister is aware that apparent delays in the processing of vetting applications is something that causes anxiety for those awaiting their vetting certificates so that they can take up employment positions or voluntary roles.

Both the Garda Central Vetting Unit in Thurles and the Minister are acutely aware of the need to minimise the turn around time for vetting applications. At a time when people are keen to get back into the workforce we want to ensure that the vetting process is not going to interfere with that.

For the sake of clarity and to put the matter in context I would like to outline what the vetting process is all about.

The Garda Central Vetting Unit provides employment vetting for approximately 20,000 organisations in Ireland which are registered with the Gardaí for this purpose. These are organisations which employ persons in a full-time, part-time, voluntary or training capacity to work with children and/or vulnerable adults. The primary purpose of the process is the protection of children and vulnerable adults. That is the paramount consideration. The number of vetting applications received this year up to September 2012 is 212,558 with an expected out turn for the year of 350,000. Over the past few years these numbers have risen from 218,404 in 2008 to 315,100 in 2011.

Garda Vetting Disclosures are made to registered organisations following the signed authorisation by a vetting subject permitting the GCVU to disclose to the registered organisation details of all prosecutions, successful or not, pending or completed, and/or convictions which may be recorded in respect of them in the State or elsewhere. Alternatively the disclosure will state that there are no prosecutions or convictions recorded in respect of them.

The function of the GCVU is to make disclosure, in accordance with a written authorisation from the vetting subject, to the registered organisation. Decisions on the suitability of the person concerned rest at all times with the recruiting organisation to which a vetting disclosure is made.

As I mentioned earlier, the Garda Central Vetting Unit currently processes over 300,000 vetting applications per year. The staff of the Vetting Unit are to be commended for their work in reducing the processing time for vetting applications from some 12 to 14 weeks when the Minister was appointed in March 2011 to between 2 and 3 weeks by May 2012. This improvement was of enormous benefit to individuals and organisations throughout the State.

However, the number of staff in the Unit decreased by 20 between March and May this year as temporary staff contracts came to an end. This reduction in staff numbers has been partly offset by the redeployment of 15 Clerical Officers from the Department of Agriculture to a sub-office of the Garda Central Vetting Unit in Ennis in May. The new staff have, at this stage, completed their training period. In the interim, however, processing times again increased and the current processing time vetting applications is 8 weeks. Seasonal fluctuations such as the start of the school year and the necessity to seek additional information on particular applications can result in this processing time being exceeded on occasion.

The Garda Central Vetting Unit, which will become the National Vetting Bureau under the provisions of this Bill, will have a substantially expanded role under new legislation and the Minister is engaged in discussions with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform to ensure adequate staffing to meet these new demands.

24 October 2012