Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The suggestion is that if someone has been vetted, deemed suitable and given employment, should something emerge later on that indicates unsuitability, the vetting bureau would report that to the employer or sporting organisation. I would ask for the opportunity to consider that. There may be difficulties as a result in the sense that we could not have a situation where if an incident occurred and gardaí were merely investigating it, they would furnish a series of possible suspects to the vetting bureau where those people could all be entirely innocent.

There are human rights issues involved also. Vetting as envisaged under the legislation is vetting of the individual at the time the vetting is undertaken. It could be a logistical nightmare to have rolling vetting and any issue that subsequently arose about an individual would be the subject of further additional information.

Putting this in the context of other legislation, if someone is vetted and is working with children and is subsequently charged and convicted of a sexual offence, under the Sex Offenders Act that person is required to inform his or her employer of the fact he or she has been convicted if he or she works with children or vulnerable adults. If he or she fails to do so, that is an offence. I originally hoped to have a new sexual offences Bill published before the end of the year but based on the schedule it will be published some time in the first half of next year, but as far as we can make some of the protections in that area more rigorous, we are addressing that in the new Bill.

An issue is that when someone is convicted, he or she must register as a sex offender within seven days of moving to a new location and we are examining this area. Again we must be careful. If someone was convicted of a minor offence, such as not paying half a dozen parking tickets, should that be included in circumstances where he or she works with children and vulnerable adults? Offences would have to be identified for when it is appropriate, which member of the Garda Síochána would be responsible for reporting it to the vetting bureau and the creation of a separate section within the vetting bureau to track where people are employed so the information can be communicated. I must be conscious of both practical matters and resource issues. I will give the issue some thought.