Written answers

Wednesday, 6 December 2006

Department of Education and Science

Garda Vetting Services

9:00 pm

Photo of Catherine MurphyCatherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)
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Question 311: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the safeguards in place in locations where both primary education and adult education are located in the same school, and required to be in place regarding the screening of those adults with access to the facilities and the protection of children; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [41989/06]

Photo of Mary HanafinMary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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Ensuring the protection, health and welfare of children is a key concern for the Government, for parents, for agencies that work with children and for society generally. I can assure the Deputy that the Government is determined to do all that we can to keep our children and vulnerable adults safe. I am pleased to inform the Deputy that all new teachers have been vetted and the process of vetting non-teaching staff is underway.

My Department has had discussions with the relevant interests — school management authorities, unions, the Teaching Council and the Garda Central Vetting Unit — on the procedures and processes which will apply in relation to the vetting of all persons in the education sector. I'm sure the Deputy will appreciate that the number and range of persons who have access to pupils is very wide. With regard to the issue of vetting of all adults with access to children in the education sector, in my view, the determining factor in deciding whether or not such persons should be vetted is the extent to which they have unsupervised access to children or vulnerable adults. As the expansion of the service provided by the Garda Central Vetting Unit is rolled out, I envisage that any individual who may have unsupervised access to children would be included in this category.

The critical issue here is whether the access to children is unsupervised. By unsupervised access I mean where a member of the school staff or a parent or guardian of the child is not present at all times when the person concerned has access to children.

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