CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY
Wednesday, 22nd June 2016.
Senator Neale Richmond-
The need for the Minister for Justice and Equality to urgently review the system of processing applications to the National Vetting Bureau as the current system is clearly overwhelmed, leading to inordinate delays in processing.
Reply by Minister of State Finian McGrath TD on behalf of the Tánaiste and
the Minister for Justice and Equality Frances Fitzgerald TD
The Tánaiste is grateful to the House for giving her the opportunity to clarify matters where this issue is concerned.
In that regard, the Senator will be pleased to note that there is no undue delay in the processing of applications for persons who require Garda vetting.
The Tánaiste has been informed by the Garda authorities that the current average processing time for vetting applications is four weeks.
The Senator will be aware that the National Vetting Bureau provides employment vetting to organisations registered with the Gardaí for this purpose and which employ persons in a full-time, part-time, voluntary or training capacity to positions where they would have substantial, unsupervised access to children and/or vulnerable adults.
Garda vetting applications are processed as they are received in the National Vetting Bureau and all organisations registered for Garda vetting are aware of the processing time-frames and have been advised to factor this into their recruitment and selection process.
To put the scale of the operation being conducted by the National Vetting Bureau into some perspective, in 2015 the Bureau, or Garda Central Vetting Unit as it was then known, processed 335,427 applications for vetting. In this year, up to the 31st May 2016, the Bureau has processed 129,651 applications. 80% of these applications were processed within the four week time frame alluded to.
There are approximately 18,000 organisations in receipt of vetting services from the National Vetting Bureau covering a wide range of health, educational, sporting and recreational sectors in Ireland. The Bureau provides ongoing support and advice to the organisations in managing their vetting requirements.
There will, of course, always be some individual cases where additional enquiries may be necessary and this may result in processing times in excess of the average. The primary consideration of the Bureau is to seek to ensure the safety of children and vulnerable adults. Accordingly, the vetting process demands rigorous procedures to safeguard its integrity and to maintain the highest level of confidence by the public and organisations availing of the service.
Any vetting process will take a certain minimum amount of time to complete and, taking into account the importance of measures to protect children and vulnerable adults, while providing an effective and efficient service, the current processing period is not considered unreasonable.
An Garda Síochána is also committed to ensuring that the service provided is delivered in as modern and efficient a manner as possible which takes advantage of developments in technology. In that context, An Garda Síochána launched an 'e-vetting' system on 29 April 2016 which will facilitate the processing of applications in an on-line format, thus removing the current time-consuming process of manual applications. E-vetting will further streamline the vetting process and contribute to sustaining reduced processing times for vetting applications. The e-vetting system is designed to be compatible with the requirements of the National Vetting Bureau (Children and Vulnerable Persons) Acts 2012 to 2016 and, in this regard, was launched in tandem with the commencement of the Acts.
ENDS