Greg Daly
The Government has been urged to streamline the process for vetting people to work in schools amidst a huge backlog in the safeguarding system.
Changes in the vetting process, to ensure that people are safe to work with children, led to a “very large upsurge” in applications for such clearance, according to Seamus Mulconry General Secretary of the Catholic Primary Schools Management Association (CPSMA).
He said that the backlog has been caused by the need for people to be vetted multiple times. For example, a special needs assistant who works in three different schools has needed to be vetted three separate times.
Since the vetting legislation came into force in September, Mr Mulconry said there has been an enormous increase.
Upsurge
“In most dioceses it has increased by factor of three, and in some dioceses it has increased by a factor of four, so there’s been a massive upsurge,” he said.
It ought to be possible to streamline this arrangement, he said, so multiple vetting is no longer necessary and the system made more fit for purpose. “The legislation refers to an agreement which can exist between a school and an external body such as the GAA, and we have been waiting since last September for legal clarity from the Attorney General’s office as to how that letter would operate” he said. This would mean that vetting provided for one setting could be valid for other settings.
“This has also led to an outlay of resources on behalf of diocesan offices as they’ve struggled to cope,” he said.
Colette O’Doherty, Director of Safeguarding for the Diocese of Ferns, echoed this. “Pressure is being placed on dioceses, because we’re the conduits,” she said, adding that dioceses do not have the resources to meet the duplication required.
“In Ferns we don’t have the capacity to double-vet,” she said, calling for pressure to be “focused upwards” so the mechanism of the shared agreement can be put into practice.
Requests to the Office of the Attorney General for clarification on the delay went unanswered as The Irish Catholic went to press this week.
