Punch-drunk with Garda vetting rigmarole

This week's Independent News & Media Irish regional newspapers' column

Michael Commane 

I have completed at least three Garda vetting forms.

It’s a tedious exercise and there are aspects about the form that leave much to be desired. 

For readers who are not familiar with the vetting form, the applicant is requested to give the address of every place she/he has lived since birth.

In my case that works out at 13 addresses, including four outside the State.

Some years ago when completing one of these forms I omitted the house number of the address. I subsequently received a letter from The National Vetting Bureau of An Garda Síochána requesting the number of the house. I had lived at that address in West Berlin between 1984 and 1986.

The Garda Vetting Bureau does not check addresses outside the State.

Current law requires that if someone’s job involves contact with children they must be Garda vetted. 

That makes sense. But it is annoying that every time one takes up a position, which may involve contact with children, they have to be Garda vetted anew.

Say on a Monday you begin work as a hospital chaplain you have to be Garda vetted and then on Tuesday you volunteer to work with the St Vincent de Paul Society you have to be Garda vetted again.

Is it the perfect example of closing the stable door after the horse has bolted?

On Monday I spoke to a garda sergeant from the Garda Vetting Bureau.

Why is there not a system in place that once a person is Garda vetted they then have universal vetting for a specific period of time?

The garda sergeant with whom I spoke explained that every organisation and employer has its own rules and regulations concerning Garda vetting.

Nevertheless, I still don’t understand why my Garda vetting clearance could not be on my Public Services Card.  

I also do not understand why the Garda Vetting Bureau does not allow return applicants to update their details in a simpler way. 

The current system requires that the applicant has to start from the beginning and repeat all the information given on previous forms. When I put that question to the garda sergeant his reply was that it would involve extra storage on IT systems.

Garda vetting is in place to protect people, which means it’s necessary. I can’t help but think that for big corporate organisations what matters most to them is their image.

My underlying annoyance with all this vetting is because back in the mid-1980s I suggested at a meeting that there was a tendency in the Catholic Church to brush certain issues dealing with deviant behaviour under the carpet and that there was need for greater transparency. I can still remember the silence there was in the hall after my suggestion. And certainly nothing was done, indeed one man told me that everything was fine. He imperiously dismissed me.

It has left an indelible mark on me. 

These days when I hear people talking about ‘hindsight’ I try to bite my lip and say nothing. But guess what, it’s not easy and I’m weary of ‘establishment speak’.

Organisations are for the benefit of the individual. Too often that’s turned on its head. And the churches have that added ‘certitude’ believing that they know exactly what God is thinking. When you think you have God on your side you might well believe that you can do anything. 

Church authorities can easily delude themselves into believing that they always know best. That always means that the organisation has to be protected, whatever the cost. I wonder what the Holy Spirit thinks of that?