Department of Social Sciences policy on Garda Vetting

All incoming and returning undergraduate students on the BA Social Care and BA Early Childhood Education programmes will be required to submit their details for Garda (police) vetting, to determine whether they have criminal convictions which may make them unsuitable for practice placements in early education or social care settings. The DIT procedures and forms are detailed at under G (for Garda vetting). The contact email address is . The onus is on the student to complete the form correctly.

The Garda website has a useful FAQ section:

The main points to note are:

  • The Student Vetting Office in DIT will send the original Garda vetting returns/disclosures to each student’s placement as per TUSLA policy.
  • You must fully and honestly complete the Garda Vetting Form. Failure to disclose a criminal conviction automatically renders what may appear to be a minor offence, unrelated to children or minors, to be a serious breach of DIT regulations. That is, it will be interpreted as an attempt to deceive the Institute.
  • Should Garda Vetting disclose a criminal conviction against you, the Institute reserves the right not to register you for a programme of study. Should you already be a registered student, the Institute reserves the right to cancel your registration, thus removing you from a course of study.
  • A criminal conviction does not automatically make you unsuitable to work in social care or early education. The Institute has a mechanism to judge whether or not a conviction warrants preventing a student from registering or re-registering. If the Institute decides that a student is fit for placement under these circumstances, a letter will be sent to the student’s placement outlining the conviction and the Institute’s view that the student is fit for placement. The placement can decide to accept the student on placement or not.
  • Should the Institute be unable, after reasonable efforts, to locate a placement willing to accept a student with a criminal conviction, the Institute reserves the right to cancel the student’s registration, thus removing him/her from a course of study (as neither of the above mentioned degrees may be completed without undergoing a practice placement).
  • Should a criminal trial be ‘pending’ at the time a student competes the Garda Vetting from, he/she shall, of course, be deemed innocent of the charge. However, students are requested to inform the Institute (the Admissions Officer) (a) of the nature of the charge and (b) of the outcome of the trial.
  • The Institute reserves the right to vet students more than once, and at any point during a student’s programme of study.
  • Where a student has been charged but not convicted, generally DIT is not obliged to disclose this information to placement (with the condition that the Head of School, having regard to the seriousness of the charges, is satisfied).
  • Students on theBA Social Care and BA Early Childhood Education will not be allowed to begin placement until the vetting return/disclosure is received by the Institute and the student cleared for placement.
  • Previous Garda vetting documentation that a student may possess is not acceptable as DIT must obtain Garda vetting independently.
  • Overseas vetting. In line with CORU requirements for registration[1], it is the responsibility of International students or students who have lived abroad for more than one year and one day after the age of 18 to obtain police clearance from that country. If the police clearance document is written in a language other than English, it is the student’s responsibility to provide an authenticated translation into English.

December 2017

[1]“If an applicant has lived abroad for one year and one day or longer after the age of 18 in any one country, they must provide a Certificate of Criminal Clearance for that country. (This does not include periods spent in Northern Ireland which is covered under National Vetting Bureau).”