Mark Ward (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State. As I said, there is confusion. The applicants are coming back to me and saying they are awaiting Garda vetting.

The local authority has come back to me to say it is waiting for Garda vetting. For example, South Dublin County Council has more than 10,000 applicants on the list waiting for social housing. That council's process is that it seeks some sort of Garda vetting, or some sort of okay from a superintendent, that the person moving in has not got a record. Drug charges or violence are usually the two things they look for in that regard. I ask for some sort of cross-departmental co-operation to see if there is any assistance we can give the superintendent in this.

I will give one brief example. A mother of seven children has been waiting since August for this vetting to come back. She is stuck in her family home. Although she is lucky enough to have a family home to stay in, she is stuck there with her mother. She and her children thought they would have moved in by Christmas, and there was great excitement and so on, but Christmas has come and gone, it is six months later and they still have not moved in.

Is there a more centralised way this can be done? The Minister of State said the Garda does not have a role in it but superintendents have a role, when a local authority asks. Is there a more centralised way to get this done? I appreciate it is not necessarily the Minister of State's brief.

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