For anyone involved in underage sports teams or local youth groups, it’s a topic that is never far away: Garda vetting.
And it raised at this week’s full meeting of Laois County Council that the system needs to be simplified considerably.
As it stands, anyone that is involved in more than one group needs to be Garda vetted each time.
In essence it means that if you’re involved with a soccer team and a GAA team you must go through the Garda vetting process twice.
It was an issue that was raised by Independent councillor Tommy Mulligan via one of his motions at Monday’s full council meeting.
Cllr Mulligan’s proposal read: “That Laois County Council call on the National Vetting Bureau in An Garda Síochána to urgently reform the current Garda vetting process requesting that one annual vetting renewal covers all organisations.”
“I understand the importance of vetting and safeguarding our young people but the process of Garda vetting needs to be amended,” said Cllr Mulligan when addressing the council.
“It’s a huge issue at the moment as many clubs and organisations are back up and running. With juvenile GAA teams back training I’m hearing how frustrating it is for adults as they have to get vetted for a second or a third time in the space of a few months … it’s also frustrating the length of time that garda vetting takes.”
Highlighting his own personal experience of having to get vetted through his role as a teacher as well as a GAA coach, he’d also need to get vetted again if he got involved with the local Foróige group for example.
“It’s a ridiculous situation that could be easily solved if we had a Garda vetting number or Garda vetting card that could be renewed annually and used for any organisation.
“We should be making this a simple process especially for volunteers rather than putting obstacles in their way.”
Among those to support Cllr Mulligan’s motion was Fine Gael’s Barry Walsh from Ballyroan who is also a councillor in the Portlaoise Municipal District.
“I’m involved in coaching soccer, basketball and GAA and need vetting for each one. We’re trying to encourage coaches to get involved but this is a barrier when they need to get vetting each time.”
Cllr Walsh added that the safeguarding system, where coaches need to sit a course every three years, should also be centralised.
“Soccer will accept the GAA one but the GAA won’t accept the soccer one and basketball only accepts the basketball course. It needs to be made a lot simpler.”
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