Situation with Garda vetting ‘very serious’

WICKLOW GAA’s children’s officer Frances Stephenson has again appealed for all juvenile coaches and mentors in the county who have not yet undergone Garda vetting to do so immediately and to stand aside from their coaching positions until that vetting is completed.

Speaking at the recent County Board meeting in Ballinakill, the Bray Emmets club person informed the delegates that a Designated Liaison Person training course scheduled for this week had had to be cancelled due to lack of numbers. She went on to add that it is now illegal for clubs to have anybody coaching underage teams who have not yet went through the Garda vetting process.

“I just want to mention an email that went out last week about DLP training, Designated Liaison Person training. If you don’t appoint someone it defaults to whoever is chair of the club. It isn’t the children’s officer. It can’t be the children’s officer. It’s a separate position.

“We’ve had to cancel it because there are only six people available to come, so I’m going to try and organise one for the end of the month with Croke Park. We will be giving you a date on Thursday for that. If you keep an eye on your emails for that. We’re going to do one in the north of the county first and then organise one on the south and west after that.

“Just to remind people that, under the Children First legislation, you cannot have anybody who is working with underage players now who is not Garda vetted. If you can please check through who your coaches and mentors are and get them to go through this Garda vetting process immediately. They need to stand aside. They can’t get involved unless they are Garda vetted. So now is the time to do it, before they start back.

Wicklow GAA Chairman Martin Fitzgerald added his voice to the situation when he told delegates that this is a “very serious” issue and that if clubs don’t buy into Garda vetting that it could jeopardise juvenile activities for clubs.

“This is a very serious issue. If the clubs are not going to buy into this, there possibly could be no juvenile matches played for your club. Possibly. Every club has to buy into it,” he said.

Frances Stephenson added that it is a now a legal requirement for all coaches and mentors to be Garda vetted.

AGB’s John Murphy lamented the fact that there didn’t seem to be much notice given in relation to the DLP training.

Frances Stephenson admitted that clubs were only given two days, but she said that leaving it longer can contribute to clubs forgetting about it in the long run.

“It was tight,” said Wicklow GAA’s children’s officer. “I acknowledge that”.

A delegate enquired from the floor as to how long the Garda vetting covered people for. Frances Stephenson said that the priority at the moment is to get the people who are not Garda vetted into the system and that people who are already Garda vetted will be notified of any developments.

Another delegate asked why a club’s children’s officer was not permitted to be the DLP in a club.

“A children’s officer has a specific role, and the DLP is a separate role, so you cannot be the same. They are very different roles. One of the functions of the DLP is to make sure that processes are in place correctly, and the children’s officer is part of that process, but there are other processes as well, so you need to have someone separate. It can be the club chairman, there’s no problem with that,” added Frances Stephenson.