Ireland’s Education Minister Paul Givan said he was “aghast” to learn the scale of the number of school staff working without the required child safeguarding checks. The education minister told the assembly the situation that saw hundreds of temporary workers in schools – including more than 900 classroom assistants – employed without Access NI vetting was “in no way satisfactory or defensible”. In one case, revealed by The Irish News, a classroom assistant was employed for almost two-and-a-half years without undergoing the necessary Access NI checks, despite the individual and the school being asked for it nine times.
