Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Section 16 amends section 42 of the 2001 Act. That section sets out the grounds on which complaints about registered teachers may be made and the role and processes to be followed by the director and the investigating committee in respect of such complaints.

Section 42(1D), as amended by the Bill, provides that the council may make a complaint to the investigating committee where a vetting disclosure, obtained in its conduit role for school employers, gives rise to a bona fide child protection concern.

Amendment No. 25 inserts a new subsection (1E) into section 42 and makes clear the council may also make a complaint to the investigating committee under the existing provisions of section 42(1)(g), where a disclosure obtained in its conduit role contains information relating to a criminal conviction. Under the Bill as it stands, section 42(1)(g) provides that a complaint may be made in respect of a registered teacher on the grounds “that he or she has been convicted in the State of an offence triable on indictment or convicted outside the State of an offence consisting of acts or omissions that, if done or made in the State, would constitute an offence triable on indictment”. Amendment No. 25 makes clear that such a complaint may be made by the council where a vetting disclosure obtained in its conduit role for school employers contains information about a conviction of this nature.

Amendments Nos. 28, 31 and 36 are linked to amendment No. 25. Amendment No. 28 makes clear that where the council, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Bill, makes a complaint in respect of information contained in a vetting disclosure that it has obtained in its conduit role, it shall provide the director with a copy of the vetting disclosure concerned and shall indicate the information within that disclosure which grounds the complaint.

Amendment No. 31 makes clear that the director may, in the case of such complaints and for the purpose of considering whether to refuse or to refer such a complaint to the investigating committee, consider the information in the disclosure in so far as it relates to the complaint in question.

Amendment No. 36 replaces section 33(7), as amended by the Bill, with revised wording to incorporate additional provisions that set out more comprehensively the requirements on the investigating committee when dealing with the aforementioned complaints. This new subsection (7) has been amended to provide that, in addition to providing the teacher concerned with a copy of the complaint and other information and documentation accompanying the complaint, the investigating committee shall provide a copy of the vetting disclosure to the teacher concerned where the complaint has been made by the council in respect of information in that disclosure, and for the teacher to be invited to make submissions in respect of that vetting disclosure. This amendment also makes clear that the investigating committee may consider the information in a disclosure in so far as that information relates to the complaint made by the council and may consider any submissions made by the teacher relating to that disclosure.