Ms Fiona McDonnell:

The issue with regard to colleges is that under Part 2 of Article 8 of the regulations all prospective staff and students are required to have Garda vetting prior to being allowed within services. The issue raised by the Data Protection Commissioner is that for the purpose obtained the Garda vetting information should be destroyed within 12 months and that a note be put on file. The Data Protection Commissioner says that the umbrella organisations for students and the colleges should not make the vet available to the student even if consent is given by the student. The difficulty is that the provider has the responsibility to ensure that the Garda vetting is in place, not the colleges or the umbrella organisations. That is the huge difficulty.

Under the preschool regulations the colleges are not identified as the responsible person to make a determination of standards of vetting that have been applied to the student. The responsibility lies with the provider. What we require on inspection is that the Garda vetting of the applicant is available. We look at the Garda vetting to examine if there are any gaps in the history of where the individual being vetted said they lived or were resident. We have found gaps that are not in compliance with the Garda vetting.

The original Garda vetting gives us comparisons in terms of the name and other details. We have found a lot of information when we look for differences even with a verified copy from the colleges, which we then need to address. At the end of the day the safety and protection of children is paramount. Our meeting is next week and there is plenty of scope for finding a solution between us. I hope we will have a solution in the very near future on the issue.