80% of Garda vetting applications dealt with in five days

Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald has said 80 per cent of Garda vetting applications are dealt with in five working days and that there is “no particular delay” in the process.

The Tánaiste was replying to a parliamentary question from Leas-Cheann Comhairle Pat ‘the Cope’ Gallagher, who said there were undue delays and a backlog in the vetting process.

She said an e-vetting system had been rolled out earlier this year, along with an 80 per cent increase in staff.

The average turnaround time for paper applications was about four weeks, which represented “a minimum time frame, given the administrative input required”. Garda authorities had informed her that over 85 per cent of applications were now received online, she said.

An Garda Síochána launched the e-vetting system in April, which had “significantly streamlined the vetting process”. Ms Fitzgerald said there had been a dramatic improvement in turnaround times, with a drop from a 14-week average in mid-2013.

“The individual applicant can track the progress of their own vetting application online and can therefore see when their application has been processed and returned to the relevant registered organisation,” she said.

‘Actual outcomes’

However, Mr Gallagher said the Minister’s reply did not reflect “actual outcomes in Donegal”.

The Donegal TD said the waiting period had lengthened to five or six weeks, which was “causing considerable annoyance and distress for applicants”.

He highlighted the case of transition-year and third-level students who wished to go on work placements and called for the Minister to consider delegating the vetting process to divisional level for students.

“They have the same records at divisional level in Letterkenny that they do in Tipperary, headquarters for the vetting process. Doing it this way would reduce the backlog and those applications could be processed within a day.”

Ms Fitzgerald told him processing times could be longer in cases where additional enquiries were necessary or where mistakes had been made in the application.

The vetting service has been established to ensure the safety of children and vulnerable adults, the Tánaiste said. The process demanded “rigorous procedures to safeguard its integrity”. Any vetting process would take a certain time and the current processing period was “not unreasonable”.