Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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Question 594: To ask the Minister for Justice and Law Reform the number of persons awaiting a decision on Garda clearance; if all of these applications are from the previous year; the average processing time of applications; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [1507/11]

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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The Garda Central Vetting Unit (GCVU) provides employment vetting for a large number of organisations in Ireland registered with the Gardaí for this purpose and which employ persons in a full-time, part-time, voluntary or training capacity to positions where they would have substantial, unsupervised access to children and/or vulnerable adults.

The GCVU has managed a substantial increase over recent years in the numbers of vetting applications it receives from around 188,000 in 2007 to almost 325,000 in 2010. At present, there are approximately 55,000 applications in the course of being processed, the majority of which were received in 2010, with a small number received to date in 2011.

The processing time for vetting applications fluctuates in line with periods of increased demand. Furthermore, additional time may be required to process an individual vetting application in cases where clarification is required as to the details provided or where other enquiries need to be made, for example, when the person in question has lived and worked abroad. There will always be a reasonably significant time period required to process a vetting application. Registered organisations have been advised to take account of this in their recruitment and selection process. However, the Gardaí make every effort to reduce the time to the minimum possible consistent with carrying out the necessary checks. I am informed by the Garda Authorities that the current average processing time for vetting applications received at the GCVU is approximately 11 weeks.