Vetting allows employers in certain sensitive fields to find out information about a potential employee’s history, in particular their criminal record.

Since the enactment of the National Vetting Bureau (Children and Vulnerable Persons) Database System Act 2012, employee vetting is now controlled by The National Vetting Bureau. Vetting is only conducted on behalf of registered organisations for very specific purposes, usually when a person is likely to work with children or vulnerable people. 

Balancing rights

This is a complex area of law – the legislation, and the Bureau, has to juggle the difficulty of allowing disclosure of sensitive information while still respecting people’s privacy rights. On the one hand, no one wants certain offenders working with vulnerable people. On the other, the potential disclosure of convictions is enough to cause anyone anxiety or distress.

Recent case law from the English courts and the European Court of Human Rights includes MM v the United Kingdom (2013) and P&A v Secretary for State (2016). These offer useful guidance on the limits of vetting, writes Matthew Holmes, a practising barrister and the author of Administrative Law Nutshell. In the Jan-Feb 2017 Gazette, Holmes explains these cases, safeguards in the Irish legislation, and how the vetting system works in practice.

• Read the full article in the Jan/Feb 2017 Gazette

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