Modelled national estimates
What duplicated vetting preparation could be costing Ireland each year, using stated, conservative assumptions.
Illustrative modelling, not official statistics. These figures are estimates built from the assumptions listed below. They describe preparation and administration time only — never the Garda vetting check itself, which is unchanged. No real applicant data is used anywhere on this site.
Duplicated applications / year (modelled)
~100,000
repeat submissions of the same person's information
Volunteer time / year (modelled)
~58,333 hours
retyping names, addresses and ID details
Organisation admin time / year (modelled)
~33,333 hours
liaison people re-collecting and re-checking
For one multi-role volunteer (the Terry example)
A parent who volunteers at a school and two clubs spends about 1h 45m on their own applications, plus 1h of organisation admin — 2h 45m combined — repeating information that never changed.
Assumptions (change any of them and the point survives)
- ~500,000 vetting applications processed per year — deliberately below the volumes the National Vetting Bureau has reported publicly for recent years (over 600,000 in 2025).
- 30% of applications come from people holding more than one volunteer role.
- A multi-role volunteer averages 3 applications; everything after the first repeats the same facts.
- 35 minutes of applicant preparation and 20 minutes of organisation admin per application.
Try your own numbers in the duplication calculator.