Ben Briscoe
Ceist:187 Mr. Briscoe asked the Minister for Enterprise and Employment the precautions, if any, which FÁS will take to ensure that people which it employs are suited to work with members of the public, particularly children. [9248/96]
Written Answers. - FÁS Employees.
I understand that FÁS takes particular care to ensure that persons employed by them are suited to work with members of the public. I further understand that FÁS is especially conscious of the need to ensure that all persons, and particularly children, who have contact with FÁS programmes are protected fully from possible abuse. In order to ensure the protection of children, FÁS has drawn up and is in the process of disseminating child protection guidelines for use by community employment sponsors. It is FÁS policy to require all sponsors who undertake projects which deal with young people or with people with special needs to have in place procedures to deal with the protection of these vulnerable groups. These procedures aim to provide a framework within which sponsoring bodies will: create a safe and secure environment for children and-or for people with special needs; help lessen the possibility of persons with a criminal record or with history-background of offences relating to abuse, being recruited; help to ensure that the best available person is recruited to work with childrenpeople with special needs; and deal in a correct and sensitive manner with all allegations, suspicions or disclosures of abuse.
FÁS has also drawn up draft clearance checking procedures for use by project sponsors as part of their recruitment procedures and also for use by FÁS when selecting participants for child care training courses. My Department is currently discussing with the Department of Justice as to how these procedures could best be put in place.