Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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Question 216: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the categories of people who work in schools, either in a voluntary or paid capacity who are subject to vetting before they can be appointed; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [5079/07]

Mary 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 sure the Deputy will appreciate that the number and range of persons who have access to pupils is very wide. 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. 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. I am pleased to inform the Deputy that all new teachers have been vetted and the process of vetting new non-teaching staff is underway.