Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

I propose to take Questions Nos. 33, 85 and 86 together.

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

In the education sector, vetting is currently available in respect of prospective employees of children in detention schools as well as special needs assistants and bus escorts to children with special needs. I announced a doubling of the number of staff employed in the Garda central vetting unit, which has been relocated to Thurles under the Government's decentralisation programme, to ensure that it can handle a greater volume of requests from employers. 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. This will include teachers, caretakers, bus drivers and others working with children, whether on a full-time or part-time basis.

As a first step in the expansion of services provided by the vetting unit, it is proposed that new staff employed in the 2006-07 school year will be vetted. The vetting requirement will be extended to others, including existing staff, later on.

In the case of new teachers, vetting will form part of the process of the registration by the newly established Teaching Council. The council will be responsible for submitting the applications to the vetting unit. In the case of non-teaching staff, it will be the responsibility of the relevant school authorities, including vocational education committees where appropriate, to submit the applications.

The Department of Education and Science has had discussions with the relevant interests — school management authorities, unions, the Teaching Council and the vetting unit — on the procedures and processes which will apply in the vetting of persons in the education sector. Guidelines for school authorities have been finalised and have been published on the Department's website. Hard copies of the guidelines will be issued to school authorities.

The issue of vetting of members of boards of management raises the wider issue of vetting of people who volunteer in the education sector. The determining factor in deciding whether such persons should be vetted is the extent to which they have unsupervised access to children or vulnerable adults. As the expansion of service provided by the Garda central vetting unit is rolled out, I envisage that any board of management members who may have unsupervised access to children would be included in this category.

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