Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 21:

In page 8, to delete lines 12 and 13 and substitute the following: “(a) in subsection (1) —

(i) by substituting “a relevant court” for “the District Court”,

(ii) by inserting the following paragraph after paragraph (a):

“(aa) the penalty imposed by the court in respect of the conviction concerned is a relevant sentence;

and

(iii) by substituting the following paragraph for paragraph (c):

(c) the relevant period that applies shall have ended;”,".

The amendments relate to Part 3 and will amend the National Vetting Bureau (Children and Vulnerable Persons) Act 2012. Amendment No. 22 will make the same change as amendment No. 17, namely, removing the limit on the number of convictions from the Garda vetting scheme.

Amendments Nos. 21 and 23 will amend the 2012 Act to ensure that convictions received in the Circuit Court can become spent for the purposes of Garda vetting. The approach taken to differentiate the Garda vetting scheme from the general scheme of the 2016 Act was to make them largely similar and add a significant number of offences that would be excluded from being spent, which are listed in Schedule 3 to the 2012 Act. The change will be in light of the higher standards required for the purposes of Garda vetting for work such as care of children, regulated professions and so on.

A significant change was made, however, between the general spent convictions regime and that which applies to Garda vetting. Under the general scheme, Circuit Court convictions can become spent but under the vetting scheme, they cannot, despite 17 provisions excluding further offences not in the general scheme. In the more sensitive areas of vetting, we should exclude offences based on the nature of the offence and not on the court in which the conviction was received. The more targeted approach will prevent an arbitrary exclusion of Circuit Court convictions where such a distinction was not made in the general scheme and where, if there are concerns about specific offences being included, we can legislate for them specifically. I hope the Minister will accept the amendments.