Madam, - In two recent reports your health correspondent, Eithne Donnellan, highlighted the failure of health board-run children's centres to properly screen childcare staff.
In one of these reports it was stated that failure to obtain Garda clearance for childcare staff was in breach of the national guidelines for the protection and welfare of children.
To call these "national" guidelines is misleading in so far as these guidelines apply only to the protection and welfare of children under the care of the health boards and some related organisations.
Children being cared for in the voluntary and community sector have no protection of this kind because organisations in the voluntary and community sector are not entitled to seek Garda clearance for individuals seeking to work with children or vulnerable adults.
Despite repeated calls, over a number of years, from the voluntary and community sector for proper vetting procedures to be put in place as a matter of urgency, the Government has failed to respond. However the decision to provide Garda clearance for the Special Olympics World Games clearly demonstrates governmental awareness that a police checking process is a vital element of best practice in ensuring the welfare of children in the care of adults.
If it is deemed essential for this important but ephemeral event, surely it is even more imperative for the ongoing protection of children in this country.
Indeed, the Gardai's capacity to vet 30,000 volunteers for a single event is a positive indication that the logistics are manageable for vetting staff required by Irish childcare organisations.
Every day voluntary and community groups lose staff because they cannot be properly vetted while at the same time this appalling inaction on the part of the Government places many thousands of children at risk and prevents childcare and other organisations from following best practice.
The absence of this provision is now probably the single most serious issue for the voluntary childcare sector.
I call on the Ministers for Health, Justice and the Minister for Children, Mr Brian Lenihan TD, to take immediate action to remedy this ad hoc approach to child protection before childcare providers are forced to curtail their service or, far worse, an un-checked adult harms a child.
Resolving this issue would be a relatively easy and high profile acknowledgement of the Government's true commitment to the care and protection of all children and not just some children. - Yours, etc.,
TERRY DIGNAN, Programme Director, Barretstown Gang, Ballymore Eustace, Co Kildare.