Sir, – I share K McEvoy’s frustration at the Garda vetting process (Letters, June 25th), though this is no reflection of the gardaí, who have always been most helpful.
Like K McEvoy I also volunteered stewarding for Pope John Paul II’s visit without the benefit of Garda vetting. Yet in recent years I have had to go through multiple Garda vettings for parents’ associations and local sports clubs. That a Garda vetting for one parents’ association cannot be used for another parents’ association and then cannot be used for a local sport club seems unwieldy, is enormously frustrating and places an onerous burden on the gardaí.
I do appreciate the reasons that such vetting had to be introduced in the first place, but it makes it increasingly difficult for organisations that rely on volunteers and it also discourages the very volunteers who give freely of their time to support local good causes, to require them to go through multiple Garda vettings.
Surely a single multi-use vetting would be good for volunteers, the organisations which benefit from them and the gardaí who underpin the system? Over to our politicians to do their duty for a simple legislative change. Any volunteers? – Yours, etc,
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ANDREW DOYLE,
Bandon, Co Cork.