Garda vetting

The National Vetting Bureau (Children and Vulnerable Adults) Act 2016 requires all people doing relevant work, that involves access to, or contact with, children or vulnerable adults, to be Garda vetted.

The HSE will carry out Garda vetting on all potential new employees where their role is engaged in relevant work.

This means you will not start your new role until the Garda Vetting Clearance process is complete.

Garda Vetting is processed by the Garda Vetting Liaison Office (GVLO).

Garda vetting process

As part of the Garda vetting process, an applicant must disclose all convictions, both in Ireland and in other countries. This includes any pending prosecutions.

This doesn't include convictions spent under the Spent Convictions Act.

Convictions include:

• driving offences
• non-payment of a TV licence
• public order offences
• probation or community service orders

Information about the Garda Vetting process from the National Vetting Bureau

Police Clearance

If you will be engaged in relevant work, and you have lived outside the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, from the date of your 16th birthday, you have to provide police clearance for each country where you have had an address for 6 months or more.

If you are not able to provide police clearance at the time of the job offer, the offer may be withdrawn.

Your police clearance must:

• be dated after you left that country
• cover the entire full time you lived there
• confirm that you had no criminal convictions while living there

Getting police clearances can take time. If you are thinking of starting a career within the HSE, we would advise that you start this process as soon as possible.

The following resources may be helpful.

United Kingdom (UK)

To apply for a police clearance certificate from the UK go to acro.police.uk

Australia

To apply for a police clearance certificate in Australia go to apply for a national police certificate - afp.gov.au

New Zealand

To apply for police clearance in New Zealand go to NZ Police Vetting Service - police.govt.nz

Dubai

To apply for a police clearance certificate from Dubai Police go to Police Clearance Certificate

India

To apply for a police clearance certificate from India go to Police Clearance Certificates

South Africa

To apply for a police clearance certificate from the South African Police Service go to Services | SAPS (South African Police Service)

United States of America (USA)

If you need security clearance from the USA, it must come from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

FBI Clearance covers all of the United States.

Clearance from an individual state (for example, New York) is not accepted. This is because it only covers 1 state and may miss convictions from other states.

Other countries

For other countries not listed above, you can contact the relevant embassies. They can provide you with information on seeking police clearance.

Do not send us your overseas clearance or any other documentation unless we request it from you.

Candidates who accept a job offer will have a specified time within which to provide us with the required documents otherwise, the job offer may be withdrawn. We will tell you the timeline when you proceed to pre-employment clearances stage.

We will keep a copy of your overseas Clearance on file and return the original to you by post.

Please note that you are responsible for any costs involved in this process.