Vol. 506 No. 2
362 Ms Shortall asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform if his attention has been drawn to the difficulties being encountered by some child care service providers in acquiring Garda clearance for child care personnel due to the lack of clarity of who is responsible to give the clearance; the individual responsible for this service; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15487/99]
The position is that there have been arrangements in place since 1994 whereby the Garda Síochána carry out clearance checks in respect of full-time prospective employees in the health care area who would have substantial access to children or vulnerable individuals. These arrangements, which were introduced by my predecessor at that time at the request of the Department of Health in response to allegations of abuse of children in residential child care centres, are implemented by the Garda Síochána in strict adherence to legal advice received in the matter from the Attorney General.
A practice had developed whereby employers of prospective employees, not coming under the above formal arrangement, were, with the written consent of these employees, requesting garda for copies of "personal data" relating to the individuals concerned under section 4 of the Data Protection Act, 1988. This data would have included any personal data held on the Garda criminal records database. I was informed by the Garda authorities that they were advised by the Data Protection Commissioner that the said section 4 did not provide for the disclosure of personal data to third parties, irrespective of whether or not the individuals in question had consented to allow the Garda to respond to the prospective employer and the Garda authorities, on the advice of the Data Protection Commissioner, ceased to do so. The Attorney General subsequently advised that section 4 of the Data Protection Act, 1988 was not designed for, and is not appropriate for, use as a vehicle for police clearance.
The fact that there are a large number of organisations with responsibility for child care who engage staff, ranging from full-time paid staff to voluntary staff who are not currently covered by the existing Garda clearance arrangements for full-time employees in the health care area is a matter of concern for me and I would wish to see these arrangements extended as quickly as possible to cover any person who would have regular unsupervised contact with children or other vulnerable persons irrespective of a health care setting.
