The Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children will seek "an urgent meeting" with the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell to discuss inadequacies in the vetting of staff for children's homes, writes Kitty Holland
The society will call for additional resources for the Garda Central Vetting Unit. Applications for vetting currently take about three weeks to process.
The society's move follows publication of a report from the Social Services Inspectorate (SSI) yesterday, which found just one of the 22 children's residential homes inspected last year had carried out adequate checks on staff before employment.
Nine centres were found to have employed one or more staff for whom there was no record of Garda checks, while seven had employed staff before checks were complete.
Mr Paul Gilligan, chief executive of the ISPCC, said the Government must "act immediately on the issue of vetting for those wishing to work with children.
"We've been campaigning on this for two years and in fairness to the Minister for Children he has shown a commitment to introducing adequate vetting procedures, but this now clearly rests with the Minister for Justice."
If there was not "clear progress" on the issue, Mr Gilligan said the ISPCC would run a campaign during the summer to galvanise popular support.
"The public is very concerned. And the lack of vetting in state children's homes is no help to the very hard-working, committed people working in them, who are all under the same cloud."
Mr Owen Keenan, chief executive of Barnardos, said: "From the child's point of view, they have the right to be protected no matter what the status of the carer. And regarding children's residential centres, we are talking about the most vulnerable children."
The Children's Rights Alliance said it was "inexcusable that staff not be properly vetted before employment" in children's homes.
Referring to concerns in the SSI report about difficulties accessing psychiatric services for children in such homes, and in particular in the Special Care Unit, the alliance chief executive, Mr Ray Dooley, said that, under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, all children had a right to such health services.
The Fine Gael spokesman on health and children, Mr Dan Neville, laid responsibility with the Minister of State for Children, Mr Brian Lenihan.