Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 30 April 2014
575. Deputy Michael Healy-Rae asked the Minister for Justice and Equality the position regarding the regulations for Garda vetting to ensure vetting is portable for a two year period thus reducing waiting times and making volunteering easier; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19130/14]
View answerVetting procedures in this country are in place to protect children and vulnerable adults. As such they demand rigorous procedures to ensure their integrity and to maintain the highest level of confidence by the public and organisations availing of them.
A full vetting check is conducted for each new application received to ensure that the most recent data available is taken into account. The non-transferability and contemporaneous nature of the certificate protects against the risk of fraud or forgery and is a guarantee of the integrity of the vetting service. It also affords the registered organisation the facility to assess suitability based on the most up to date information available on the applicant. The Deputy will appreciate that the safety of children and vulnerable adults is the primary consideration and this must remain the case.
Elements of the National Vetting Bureau (Children and Vulnerable Persons) Act 2012 relating to the disclosure of convictions are under review at present. While I intend bringing proposals before the Oireachtas to provide that certain old minor convictions will not be disclosed under the provisions of the 2012 Act, I do not intend making provisions in the Act to provide that a person who has been Garda vetted with one organisation can move to a different organisation without having to reapply for a new clearance from the Garda vetting section.
This is because once there has been any significant time lapse between one employment and another, the original Garda Vetting Disclosure would not include information regarding any recent criminal convictions, and the second employer could not safely rely on it. Under the Data Protection Acts, any sensitive personal data which employers use in regard to their employees must be current, accurate and up-to-date. Separately, employers would be exposed to civil liability if they knowingly recruited staff based on out-of-date criminal records information where the person in fact has a more recent criminal conviction.
The Deputy may also wish to note that the current average processing time for vetting applications is four weeks which is a significant improvement on this time last year when it stood at 12 weeks.
