Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal North East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Sinn Féin welcomes the Bill as an important step in improving the child protection structures in the State. In 2011 a report by the special rapporteur on child protection, Geoffrey Shannon, exposed the alarming inadequacy of laws, procedures and resources to protect children from abuse. The lack of regulated access to soft information on potential abusers of children was one of the main issues that needed to be addressed so it is heartening to see the Minister has brought this forward as one of the first pieces of legislation to be dealt with during this Dáil term.

The Joint Committee on the Constitutional Amendment on Children, of which my colleague Deputy Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin was a member in the previous Dáil, recommended in September 2008 that legislation to regulate soft information be introduced. It is long overdue. The right to one’s good name is covered by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and as such it should be a cornerstone of any truly human rights-based justice policy. This right contains within it the benefits of the presumption of innocence and protection of good name and livelihood. However, we recognise that the children of Ireland have a right to - and are entitled to - the highest standards of protection. For too long, the history of the State has been blighted by a litany of horror stories in which this protection was denied to them. It is frightening to think there is a very real possibility that we have only scratched the surface of these stories.

As legislators working to develop a justice system that maintains the accused’s right to a good name while simultaneously protecting children, there is an onus on us to ensure any legislative amendment regarding the exchange of soft information has a sound constitutional footing and is insulated from challenge. There are parts of the Bill about which I have concerns in this regard and I am hopeful they will be dealt with appropriately and adequately on Committee Stage.

Further to this, the rights of a person being vetted to a good name and to a livelihood must be balanced with the rights of children to the highest standards of child protection. As Garda and police vetting deals only with hard information such as on convictions relating to prospective employees, problems arise regarding individuals who may have been reported for an offence but never charged due to insufficient evidence, or prosecuted for an offence but never convicted as a consequence of a flawed investigation or other technicality, but who nevertheless may continue to pose a risk to children. There is a clear argument in favour of sharing information where needed when an allegation did not result in conviction but a real concern still exists.

As an exceptional case, and we must emphasise this is an exception, in the interests of the protection of children as a paramount public policy consideration, Sinn Féin is in favour of the dissemination of soft information. However, we believe it must be very carefully managed, with independent oversight, and subject to robust safeguards. We are carefully examining the provisions of the Bill to ensure this is managed correctly, as well as ensuring full human rights and data protection compliance. It is our view that those provisions concerning soft information should only deal with information that has been brought to the attention of the Garda or the HSE.

We welcome the fact that individuals should be informed if they are placed on a soft information list and be given appropriate opportunity to appeal the limits set upon them by being placed on such a list, prior to any request for vetting being placed upon them by a third party. We are examining the legislation to ensure it requires that one central vetting unit stores all information in compliance with data protection legislation. There must be no confusion as to the types of information applicable to this legislation. We will submit amendments to require that a person being entered on any soft information list be informed of the action and be given adequate notice to appeal. I am not convinced that 14 days will be enough in all cases. Notice must be given of the types of employment likely to be affected by this, and furthermore, notice must be given of the length of time a person's name will remain on any list. Only after a person is informed of his or her name being placed on a list, and given adequate time to appeal, should any third party request for information be processed. The legislation must be reviewed periodically and those eligible for removal from the list on the basis of inaccurate information being held must be removed promptly.

Appeal processes must be adequate and not subject to undue delay, which brings me to my next point. The new national vetting bureau must be resourced accordingly. We are all aware that the cutbacks to Garda budgets are having a major impact on the ability of gardaí to do their work. We are dealing with a society where mandatory reporting will be the norm. The Children First guidelines will soon be placed on a statutory footing and an increase in awareness of child abuse and its effects, coupled with the introduction of a legal facility for the sharing of soft information, will mean an added strain on the newly established vetting bureau. We will propose further amendments to ensure robust safeguards for soft information including clear safeguards, limits and controls monitored by an independent body on how the vetting bureau gains, stores, reproduces and accesses soft information.

While we cannot underestimate the importance in using this legislation to firm up child protection measures, we also cannot underestimate the need to keep such information confidential and made available on a strict need to know basis. There must be a statutory obligation on a receiving agency or employer not to store or disseminate vetting results disclosed to them by the vetting bureau beyond the strictly necessary, and severe penalties for a breach. In the interest of fairness, we must also ensure limited restrictions to contesting discrimination were a person feels an employer acted above and beyond that which was required by the vetting soft information list and we strongly urge the Government to examine the option of introducing an independent body to investigate the appeals.

Furthermore, the legislation should clearly outline how international vetting is to be conducted and the standards in other jurisdictions we deem necessary for us to facilitate the exchange of information requests. The Government must acknowledge that measures such as sex offender registers and vetting in isolation will not stop abhorrent crimes of sexual abuse from occurring. Vetting of people who work with children is still problematic and slow despite improvements made in recent years. The partition of the island also poses a considerable challenge for the Garda and the PSNI in the management of those who pose a risk to children and young people or who are sex offenders.

In the past, the NSPCC has highlighted various arrangements throughout the EU for holding and disclosing criminal record information, managing and tracking sex offenders, and vetting and barring arrangements. It highlighted one case where a French national convicted of murder and sexual assaults was able to gain employment in a Belgian school where he continued to offend. It has called for common EU standards in regard to the sharing of information and vetting and it is something worth examining but in saying that, it is important not to forget that there is no minimum standard of human rights adherence across the EU.

Both Ireland and Britain have enacted legislation to ensure convicted sex offenders notify authorities of their whereabouts and progress has been made on information sharing in regard to sex offenders. However, while agencies in the North risk manage all sex offenders in a structured way, risk management approaches are only now being advanced in the Twenty-six Counties. Common legislation and policy development on a North-South basis is essential to prevent certain individuals from exploiting the Border.

The 2006 report from the joint Oireachtas committee on child protection and the Joint Committee on the Constitutional Amendment on Children in its first interim report of September 2008 recommended that the vetting system be put on a statutory footing and that organisations be legally required to vet all staff, both paid workers and volunteers, working with children. The committees also recommended the introduction of legislation to regulate the collection and exchange of records of criminal convictions and information, including soft information, which would bring the State closer in line with the situation in the Six Counties following the Ian Huntley inquiry. It is a shame that it has taken so long to look at this area but I commend the Minister for bringing forward this Bill now.

The need for a comprehensive vetting system and good protocols in information exchange cannot be underestimated. Barnardos has systematically campaigned for a comprehensive vetting system to be put in place in Ireland for all those who have access to children and young people, whether in a professional or voluntary capacity, which should include all those who are at a policy, managerial and face to face level. It is well known that sex offenders are using open borders as a means of evading detection and prosecution.

There are broader questions to be asked about how we address this. Information exchange protocols and corresponding structures in other countries are theoretically a wonderful idea but they need to be resourced with proper levels of financial, technological and staff capacity in Ireland to ensure that information is used in a meaningful way and not abused and that children are protected. Given the cutbacks in resourcing to gardaí that hamper them in doing even the most basic of policing tasks, such as responding to burglaries in rural areas, we have genuine concerns as to how this would operate.

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