Brendan Griffin (Kerry South, Fine Gael)
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82. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality her views on correspondence (details supplied) regarding Garda vetting; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [5041/15]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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I refer further to Parliamentary Question No. 146 of 21 January 2015.

In my reply I outlined the position that the primary consideration in any vetting process is to ensuring the safety of children and vulnerable adults.

There is no arrangement in place whereby vetting reports are valid for fixed periods of time. Full vetting checks are conducted by the Garda Central Vetting Unit (GCVU) for each new vetting application received to ensure that the most recent data available is taken into account.

I would again repeat the point that there are also data protection issues arising from vetting subjects, where any sensitive personal information which employers use in regard to their employees must be current, accurate and up to date in order to avoid being exposed to public liability if they knowingly recruited staff based on out of date information.

Last year the Garda Central Vetting Unit processed over 318,000 applications and this year to date it has processed in excess of 8,000. The majority of these applications were dealt in a four week processing time.

Given the necessity to ensure the protection of the most vulnerable people in society, the current vetting systems and processing times offer an effective and efficient service to registered organisations and their employees.