Garda Vetting
As part of Dún Laoghaire Rathdown Volunteer Centre’s commitment to support volunteering, we provide a Garda Vetting service for not-for-profit groups in the DLR area. The service is available for organisations that wish to vet persons but who do not have access to a Liaison Person within their own organisation.
The National Vetting Bureau has compiled a comprehensive list of questions and answers available here
The National Vetting Bureau (Children and Vulnerable Persons) Acts 2012 to 2016 provide a statutory basis for the vetting of persons carrying out relevant work with children or vulnerable adults. The Act, commenced on 29th April 2016, also introduced electronic vetting (eVetting).
Important steps
- To carry out a risk assessment of all the roles in your organisation to help you assess whether the person being vetted can build up a relationship of trust with a child or vulnerable adult.
- The Act requires you to carry out a vet before you engage an employee or volunteer. (However you can engage them in non-relevant work).
- Vetting subjects need to be vetted for each individual role that they take up with an organisation, where vetting is required.
- Vetting disclosures must be made available to vetting subjects; therefore you must retain a copy of the disclosure for the length of time that the volunteer or employee is with you.
- You must check, verify and keep proof of the vetting subjects’ identity on file.
- As set out in the Act – all youth leaders, coaches, trainers, religious leaders who work with groups of children, whether alone or accompanied by another adult, must be vetted.
- For the purposes of the Act, a child is someone under the age of 18.
Who needs to be vetted?
Any Person who is undertaking relevant work or activities, as defined by the National Vetting Bureau (Children and Vulnerable Persons) Act 2012.
A full list of relevant work or activities can be obtained in Part 1 and 2 of Schedule 1 in the Act.
How long does it take vetting forms to be processed?
Since the introduction of electronic vetting (eVetting) it generally takes a couple of weeks for the forms to be processed by the National Vetting Bureau, once the vetting application has been completed by the applicant.
Getting started
If you would like to find out more or ask about registering for our service please email vetting@volunteerdlr.ie or phone 01 441 4444. Please note, attendance at our training is mandatory for all who wish to avail of our service. Your organisation will also need to determine whether your organisation requires vetting for individual roles before signing our Service Level Agreement and registering with the Centre.
When is the next training session?
There is currently no training scheduled, please contact the Centre directly, to register your interest in the next session please click here
We are here to help
If you’re new to Garda Vetting and are unsure if you need our service. Please do get in touch on 01441 4444 or contact vetting@volunteerdlr.ie. Alternatively, you may consider contacting the National Vetting Bureau directly on 1890 488488.