Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

Ensuring the protection, health and welfare of children is a key concern for the Government, for parents, for agencies that work with children and for society generally and I assure the Deputy that the Government is determined to do all that we can to keep our children and vulnerable adults safe.

In improving our child protection procedures, the Government has focused on extending the capacity of the Garda vetting unit to ensure greater availability of vetting checks for employers who want to check the background of prospective employees.

While the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform has primary responsibility for Garda vetting, I am happy to outline the progress being made in the expansion of the service.

My colleague Deputy Brian Lenihan, Minister of State with special responsibility for children at the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, has already announced a doubling of the number of staff employed in the unit to ensure they can handle a greater volume of requests from employers. The unit will commence the augmentation of its existing vetting arrangements upon decentralisation targeted for mid-November this year. The provision of additional staff resources will enable the Garda Síochána's vetting services to be extended to all persons working with children and vulnerable adults, including teachers and caretakers.

In the education sector, vetting is currently available in respect of requests for clearance from my Department regarding bus escorts and special needs assistants provided to children, and to staff working in children's detention schools.

It is worth pointing out that, irrespective of whatever additional arrangements may be introduced in this area in future, criminal record checks, while in the appropriate circumstances being capable of making a significant contribution to ensuring that unsuitable persons do not secure positions of trust, are not the sole answer to ensuring applicants' suitability for posts.

There will continue to be a particular onus of care on employers to maintain good employment practice, both during the recruitment stage, for example, good interviewing practice and checking references, and to ensure adequate supervision arrangements after recruitment.

The issue of establishing a non-Garda, employment-related vetting register to provide information on those previously dismissed, suspended, moved or made redundant from posts for harming children or vulnerable adults in the health and education sectors is also being considered. A working group made up of representatives from the Departments of Education and Science, Justice, Equality and Law Reform and Health and Children is carefully considering the best way forward in that respect.

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