This week’s Mediahuis Irish regional newspapers’ column.
Michael Commane
Have you ever noticed how a news event gets extensive coverage for a number of days and then it fades into oblivion. One thing is certain, the issue has not gone away.
The rockets and guns in the Middle East may have fallen silent but people are left without their shelter and water, all the things that make human living possible.
It is interesting how a news story is popular one day and the next day it’s no longer the flavour of the month.
On the scale of things this is no big story but I find it all most irritating. Indeed, I have written about it on a previous occasion but I feel so strongly about it, I think it is important I remind readers of the stupidity of it all.
It’s the story of Garda Vetting. Since Christmas I have received notification from three separate organisations informing me that I need to update my Garda Vetting details.
Before another word is said, let me explain how unwieldy the system is.
Each time I fill out these forms I have to give the exact address of every place where I have lived since birth. In my case it is 17.
Fortunately, the first time I filled out the form I kept a copy of it.
It is a truly absurd system. If ever there were a case of closing the door after the horse has bolted this is it.
I actually find it a demeaning procedure. Every time I fill out those forms some sort of worrying feeling comes over me. And then the form itself is not fit for purpose. Believe it or not, it will not accept apostrophes, commas or full points when one is typing names and addresses.
I’m annoyed and yes angry too with the State authorities for designing such a system. I am also annoyed with the organisations who have collaborated with the State in creating this monster.
How much money is it all costing to keep it going, the staffs employed by the State and the individual organisations?
And then how you are told that this has to be done and that’s that.
How dare you question the wise ones. And if you refuse to cooperate you simply lose your job.
Why can’t they put all the information on a card and then after a number of years it is updated. Is the current system a means of humiliating people? That’s the impression I get every time I have to go through the hoops.
Why each time do I have to give all the addresses they already have?
I’m sure I have been told it is in accordance with GDPR. Of course there is a place for GDPR but why do I keep thinking it is manna from heaven for those who want to control, patronise and keep us in our boxes? GDPR, or the misuse of it, is the perfect tool for the pathetic bureaucrat-style officials who want to lord it over of us.
Honestly, I’m tired of it all.
It may not be on the news these days but the entire sorry saga is newsworthy. Indeed, a discussion on it could open a can of worms.
I’m also wondering how much of it has to do with organisations covering their backs?
1 comment:
This is a courageous comment since there are those who would deliberately misrepresent it as as an attack on child protection - which of course it it not. I think it is healthy any system wherein the Church and state are in too comfortable a collusion might well be reflected upon with healthy cynicism from time to time. It might be argued that a society that is hypersensitive to any hint of judgmental stances by the Church (and sometimes right so) is very accepting of new secular forms of judgmentalism and blackballing. Every time I fill out a background check form in relation to my role as a teacher of theology, I wonder how the Berrigan brothers, Fr. John Dear, Walter Wink or other prophetic Christians with a propensity to get arrested while standing up for justice might fare in such a system. Sooner or later a situation may arise whereby a priest has a record related to Covid relations, alleged hate speech, or some other contentious matter. Those who clamber for a separation of Church and state might be reluctant to acknowledge that there is a point at the Church has to prophetic rather than a slave to secular bureaucracy. Some form of vetting would seem necessary but the Garda Vetting system cannot be the final arbiter of fitness for ministry.
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