The Courts Service has agreed to take responsibility on a "temporary" basis only for overseeing the vetting of court-appointed Guardians ad Litem (Guardians at Law) dealing with vulnerable children, RTÉ's This Week has learned.
Guardians ad Litem are appointed by the courts on a case-by-case basis to provide an independent voice in childcare cases.
Their role is to represent the best interests of the child. As such they have considerable access to children, many of whom are in State care.
Sources close to the process said the Courts Service "reluctantly" agreed to take over the role in the absence of any agreement with other agencies, including the Department of Children, over who should assume responsibility for vetting.
The State spent more than €11m on fees and legal costs for Guardians ad Litem last year.
An estimated 60 Guardians ad Litem currently offer their services to the courts but the system is unregulated and there is currently no mandatory vetting of them.
The Courts Service's move follows concerns over a long period of time that the system of appointing Guardians ad Litem was ad-hoc and unregulated.
All Guardians operating in Northern Ireland are formally vetted and must meet minimum professional standards before being admitted onto the register operated by a dedicated Guardian ad Litem agency there.
Speaking in 2011, former minister for children Frances Fitzgerald said that "total reform" was needed in the area of garda vetting and the regulation of Guardians ad Litem in Ireland.
A spokesman for the Courts Service confirmed to RTÉ that it would be taking over the role of overseeing garda vetting for Guardians ad Litem in the New Year, but that the agency did not intend to perform the role long-term.
The spokesman said they would perform the task only on a temporary basis until a more appropriate organisation could be found to perform the role.
Under the new arrangement, the Courts Service will draw up a list of vetted Guardians ad Litem from which judges may appoint them on a case-by-case basis.
The Department of Children raised a query earlier this year over how many Guardians ad Litem had been vetted, among concerns that there was no formal register in place, according to a departmental briefing document seen by RTÉ.
It remains unclear exactly how many are vetted, or the extent to which former social workers who now work as Guardians ad Litem, and who would have been vetted in the past, have valid or up-to-date vetting.
Speaking on RTÉ's This Week, independent Senator Jillian van Turnhout said that one of the problems with the current, unregulated system was that it was impossible to know whether some people could have faced accusations of inappropriate conduct with children when working in a past childcare role.
