Applicants to some CAO courses are surprised to discover that they may be vetted by the Gardai before taking a place on the course.
Garda vetting is a necessary reality for some courses now, although applicants to the majority of CAO's courses are not affected by the procedure. Anyone who is offered a place on a course especially in the areas of medicine, health care, nursing, social work or teaching will require clearance from the Garda Vetting Unit when they register.
Garda clearance is sought only when a person is accepting a place on a course. Students on all of these courses will undertake placements that will bring them into contact in positions of trust with children and vulnerable adults. The Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) are committed to ensuring that only suitable adults are allowed to undertake these programmes.
A list of over 200 course codes can be found on CAO's website, by clicking "Garda Vetting" in the left hand menu. About 80 of these codes relate to nursing. The list of nursing codes is doubled for each branch of nursing or midwifery in any college, because there is one code for standard applicants and one for mature applicants.
Q Is Garda clearance necessary for all individuals being offered places on the relevant courses or does the issue affect only mature applicants?
A Clearance is sought for all those being made an offer, whether they are standard school leavers, or mature or other non-standard individuals.
What normally happens is this: when a HEI is making an offer on a relevant course to an applicant, it will send that applicant a form to complete, where they must give their name, date of birth and all addresses they have lived in since their birth.
They will also be asked to disclose on that form any convictions they may have. Failure to disclose a conviction could do them more harm than the conviction itself might have done, depending on the conviction.
Each HEI submits all the forms to the Garda Vetting Unit for clearance, and the Garda Vetting Unit returns the forms to the college when it has processed them.
CAO's website states that in some cases the HEIs may require applicants to provide more information by way of an affidavit, so an offer of a place on a course would be conditional and might be withdrawn if applicants did not meet the Garda vetting requirements.
Q Supposing an applicant, whether school leaver or other, had come to the attention of the Gardai for something like a minor driving offence, would that be enough for the college to withdraw their offer?
A Any disclosure of a conviction will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis and in complete confidentiality by the relevant HEI.
The purpose of the Garda clearance is to satisfy the requirements of the placement provider, that is, where the student would be doing their placement during their course. Some placement providers operate a policy of zero tolerance.
Most of the time, it would depend on the nature of the offence. Anyone can understand that a minor motoring offence might not rank in the same way as an assault or abuse offence of any kind.
Q If an offeree (that is, a person being offered a place on a course) did not meet the placement provider's requirements, and the offer was withdrawn, would that applicant be offered a place on their next highest CAO preference course, if it did not require Garda clearance?
A Withdrawal of an offer is so rare that there is no well-established practice. It might depend on the timing of the withdrawal of the offer, or whether the applicant had applied only to other courses requiring Garda clearance.
Irish Independent
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