Vol. 219 No. 9
I remind Senators that a Senator may speak only once on Report Stage, except the proposer of an amendment who may reply to the discussion on the amendment. Each amendment on Report Stage must be seconded.
Amendments Nos. 1 to 4, inclusive, are related and may be discussed together. Is that agreed? Agreed.
I move amendment No. 1:
In page 8, between lines 4 and 5, to insert the following:
"(v) in their capacity, engages in the provision of child-minding services for reward for any period of time".
I will be brief as we are short on time, so I will not repeat the points I made on Committee Stage. Senator Ó Clochartaigh and I have co-authored an amendment for this Stage to address the concerns the Minister raised about the wording of my initial amendment on Committee Stage. The amendments have been changed to make it clear what is intended to be covered, lest there be any doubt. It was only intended to cover professional childminders. The wording achieves that.
Ba mhaith liom tacú leis na leasuithe seo atá á gcur chun cinn. I believe we strayed from the point on Committee Stage. The point made by Senator Power was that we wished to deal with people who are working with children in homes in a professional capacity as childminders. They should be included in the vetting procedures. Senator van Turnhout clearly outlined on Committee Stage the reasons this is desirable. Many abuse situations or situations of impropriety can happen where people are dealing directly with children in a more domestic setting. There is no good reason that people who are doing this as a profession or are working in a professional capacity for their main income or for monetary gain should not be included in this vetting. The aim of the vetting is to ensure that we will know if there is a risk of somebody doing something with children that he or she should not do, and we must ensure those people are not allowed next or near the children in a professional capacity. What is proposed is sensible and is within the ethos of what the Minister is trying to achieve. It should not be too onerous on the vetting bureau either. In any case, it should be good practice. I ask the Minister to accept the amendments.
I must still oppose the amendment. I will draw some aspects of the amendments to the attention of Senators. Amendment No. 4 states: "to include work carried out by persons who engage in the provision of professional child-minding services for reward including work carried out by a nanny and/or au pair service...". First, with regard to an au pair service, an organisation or a service that is employing people as nannies means those nannies will be vetted. Getting somebody from a service is separate from employing an individual au pair. The reference is to professional childminding. This would breach the line that I described between an individual privately making an arrangement with another individual, as opposed to an individual making an arrangement with an organisation or business of some description.
The proposed amendment contains no definition of a professional childminding service. It states: "to include work carried out by persons who engage in the provision of professional child-minding services..". If it is a professional childminding service that employs individuals and I contact the service and it sends me an individual to work with a vulnerable child, the service would have had an obligation to carry out vetting. This amendment does not work. If the Senator is referring to an individual who professionally carries out a service, as opposed to the way the amendment is phrased, there would have to be a definition of what is meant by "who professionally carries out a service".
We do not need an uncertain provision in the Bill that generates a grey area, particularly a grey area that could result in somebody being criminally prosecuted. Let us say I am a student in Trinity College or University College Dublin, UCD, and I keep body and soul together by minding children in the neighbourhood for two or three days per week. I do it as an individual. Is that a professional service? Is it an amateur service? Is it a personal service? Does one criminalise the individuals who asked me to engage in that work because I was not vetted?
I cannot accept the amendments. I realise they are well meant and are designed to try to provide additional protection, but it could create major problems to rush amendments of this nature without them being adequately teased out. There are still some problems in their construction and there are no relevant definitions to ensure the provision could be applied in an appropriate manner in the Bill. Equally, the amendments stray past the situation of where an individual makes private arrangements. Unfortunately, I cannot accept them.
I am disappointed by the Minister's response because I genuinely believe that the amendment, as rephrased, is clear in its intent, in that it only covers professional childminders. I do not accept the Minister's differentiation from a child protection perspective. The Bill will cover people working as professional childminders through an agency, but it will not cover non-agency professional childminders. This is not right and I see no legitimate grounds for it. For this reason, I will push the amendment to a vote.
As the time provided for the debate has expired, I am required to put the following question in accordance with the amended order of the Seanad: "That the Bill is hereby received for final consideration and passed."
