Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I cannot remember whether it is scheduled to bring the Minister for Education and Skills before the House during the coming weeks. A serious problem is arising in schools with the vetting of occasional visitors to schools who come to carry out sports coaching or act as guest speakers and so on. I am the chairperson of a primary school board of management and I am in touch with managers and other chairs and staff of other schools who tell me there are confusions and blockages in the system arising from the new vetting legislation that came into force this year. School management officials tell me that the vetting issue has been the bane of their lives in recent months.

The new legislation which came into force this year and a Department of Education and Skills circular explaining it make clear that any people coming into a school for the first time since 29 April of this year to assist voluntarily or occasionally with coaching, mentoring, counselling, teaching or training of children or vulnerable persons must have been vetted. The problem is that various voluntary sporting and other bodies do not see it that way. One school I know of had to cancel a visit from a volunteer from the Engineers Ireland STEPS programme, a very good programme which encourages primary and post-primary students to explore the world of science, technology, engineering and maths, because that organisation's policy is not to vet those who only volunteer occasionally and it describes or defines "occasionally". A school can defend a decision not to carry out vetting where it has an agreement with an organisation sending volunteers or employees into a school, and where the school can show that the other party, that is, the sending organisation, has obtained a vetting disclosure in respect of the person coming in. However, if these organisations do not have a policy that complies with the law, no such defence is available when an unvetted person goes into the school. The school with which I was in touch now has a policy that ensures that anyone coming in who will have access to or contact with children for educational purposes will have to be vetted. However, this will cause untold confusion across the country because organisations will arrange to send in speakers and coaches, only for it to emerge at the last moment that they have not got a vetting disclosure for the person whom they are sending in, and the event will have to be called off through no fault of the school.

If one looks at the websites of the likes of the GAA and the IRFU, one sees that the new legislation is clearly not understood. For example, the GAA states: "While the preference of the GAA is to vet all persons who work in a role of responsibility with children [and so on] occasionally a guest coach may be invited to work in a supervised role with children." However, supervision is not the issue any more. If one is coming into a school for the first time since April of this year, one must be vetted. It does not matter whether one is a once-off or a regular. The IRFU states that "all persons within rugby with access to children on a regular and continuous basis" are required to be vetted. That is not the law either. The Minister should come before the House and talk to us about this. The Department of Education and Skills, having issued the necessary clarification in its circular to schools, now needs to issue clarification to bodies such as Volunteer Ireland and various other voluntary bodies that do good work and send volunteers into schools but do not seem to be up to speed with the new requirements of vetting legislation.