Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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125. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of teachers employed prior to 2007 who have registered for retrospective Garda vetting under the terms of the National Vetting Bureau (Children and Vulnerable Persons) Act 2012 and the Teaching Council Act 2001; the number of applications to be processed; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24933/17]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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In April 2016 the Minister for Justice and Equality commenced the National Vetting Bureau (Children and Vulnerable Persons) Acts 2012 to 2016. It put in place statutory requirements for the Garda vetting of persons involved in working with children or vulnerable persons, including requirements for the retrospective vetting of persons who have never previously been garda vetted.

In accordance with the relevant provisions of the Teaching Council Amendment Act 2015, the retrospective vetting of all registered teachers who have not been vetted to date is being conducted by the Teaching Council in the context of their annual renewal of registration.

From 2006 up to the introduction of statutory vetting in April 2016, almost 57,000 registered teachers were subjected to Garda vetting under the non-statutory arrangements either at point of first registration or where a teacher moved employment within the school system.  At that time, circa 34,000 registered teachers had not yet been vetted.  These were typically permanent teachers who were in the same school since the non-statutory vetting arrangements were introduced in 2006

At the beginning of 2017, the number of un-vetted registered teachers had reduced to approximately 32,500.  In January 2017, the Council commenced its programme of retrospective vetting of un-vetted teachers in the context of their annual renewal of registration and to date has requested almost 8,000 teachers to apply for retrospective vetting.  As the year progresses, the remaining un-vetted teachers will be requested by the Council to apply for vetting.