Safeguarding FAQ's

To complete a safeguarding workshop, you must contact a Local Sports Partnership (LSP) or National Governing Body (NGB). Sport Ireland do not facilitate delivery of workshops. You are not bound by your own LSP when attending workshops. You can find these contact details below 

Sport Ireland’s remit is to develop and disseminate guidelines and training standards that promote best practice for the protection of children in sport consistent with child welfare and protection guidance and legislation.  

Sport Ireland’s Safeguarding 1, 2 & 3 workshops must be recognised across all sporting organisations. 

Here is some general information around the validity of all our certificates. Please note that these timelines may be different in your own NGB in relation to their own policies and procedures. Please consult with your own NGB for their Safeguarding Policies and Procedures.  

• Safeguarding 1 (SG1): Certificate valid for three years.  
• Safeguarding 1 Online Refresher: Certificate valid for further three years once the original SG1 cert is in date. If original cert not in date at the time of completion, participants are required to complete the SG1 workshop again.  
• Note: Once Safeguarding 1 and Safeguarding Refresher are out of date, you must complete the Safeguarding 1 face-to-face session once again.  
• Safeguarding 2: Certificate valid for three years. Must complete again once out of date. 
• Safeguarding 3: Certificate valid for three years. Must complete again once out of date. 

The minimum age to complete the safeguarding workshops is 16. However, if you are under the age of 18, you will need to complete a parental consent form. This parental consent form must be given to the organisation that is facilitating the workshop.

Sport Ireland do not re-issue safeguarding certificates once they have been lost or misplaced. However, a letter of confirmation that someone has attended a safeguarding workshop can be provided. This letter is only issued if an individual’s safeguarding details are registered in the Sport Ireland safeguarding database.  

Please email ethics@sportireland.ie with as much of the following information as you have.  

• Full name 
• The location where the workshop took place (i.e. online or in a specific location)  
• Your home address at the time of completing the workshop 
• Your cert number (should you have it saved somewhere) 
• Name of the organisation you completed the workshop with (LSP or NGB) 

This information will help us to search the database. There are two outcomes of this search:  

We find your cert and we provide you with a letter of confirmation that you have completed the workshop.   

Or  

We do not find your cert. In this case, you will be asked to contact the organisation that facilitated the workshop as they should have your details on record.   

Sport Ireland recommends that you take a picture of your physical certificate and save it to your device.   

To become a safeguarding tutor, you must contact your organisation (LSP or NGB) regarding your interest. When Sport Ireland begin to organise tutor training, we will contact each organisation with an expression of interest, and they will put your name forward. We will then contact you regarding this training.  

You can complete the safeguarding 1 online refresher under the Safeguarding section of the Sport Ireland website.  

If you have not received your online refresher certificate, please check your spam folders. The email will be from no-reply@able.ineque.com. 

If you have completed the online refresher, and you cannot find your certificate in your emails, please contact us at ethics@sportireland.ie so that we can do an initial search on our database.  

If we do find your workshop completion: We will resend the cert to you. Please be sure to check your spam/junk inbox for this. The certificate will be sent to you by no-reply@able.ineque.com.  

No. You cannot complete the online refresher if you do not have a Safeguarding 1 certificate. An in-date Safeguarding 1 certificate is needed in order to validate the online refresher. The refresher is not valid without it.  

If you have completed a Safeguarding 1 workshop, please note the date by which it needs to be renewed and plan your online refresher before this date. If your Safeguarding 1 certificate goes out of date, you will need to complete the original workshop again.  

You can only do this online refresher once. After three years (or less depending on your organisation’s policy) you will have to complete the original Safeguarding 1 workshop again. 

If the workshop you have attended was facilitated by a registered organisation on the Sport Ireland Digital Certificate software (Sport:80) and your details have been uploaded onto Sport:80, you will receive an email requesting that you log into your profile. Once you have logged into Sport:80, you will receive another email with your relevant certificate. You will now have access to your profile in which you can view your safeguarding certificates.  

If you think you did not receive your digital certificate, please check your spam inbox first. You can search noreply@sport80.com for this email. If you have not received it, contact the organisation that facilitated your workshop. They will be able to resend the email to you.  

If you have noticed an error on your digital certificate, contact the organisation that facilitated your workshop. They should be able to amend this for you. 

-Your Full Name 

-Your Email Address

-Your Date of Birth

You have 24 hours to activate you Sport:80 account. If your link has expired, simply select “Forgotten Password” and a new link will be sent to you.  

If you have a child welfare concern, please contact the Designated Liaison Person (DLP) within your club/organisation. If the DLP believes there is reasonable ground for concern, they will submit a report to Tusla.  

If the DLP finds that the concern does not have reasonable grounds for reporting - you are free to informally consult with, or report to, Tusla or An Garda Síochána.  

If you have an immediate concern about a child’s welfare, never leave a child in danger. If you cannot contact Tusla you should contact An Garda Siochána without delay.  

Important Contacts: 

An Garda Siochána:

• Phone: 999 or 112

Tusla: 

• Duty Social Work Teams: Duty Social Work Teams/ Dedicated Contact PointsTusla - Child and Family Agency
• How do I report a concern to Tusla (Parents, Guardians & the General Public)?: How do I report a concern about a child?Tusla - Child and Family Agency
• How do I report a concern to Tusla (Young Person): Get in touch | Changing Futures

Each National Governing Body has a main point of contact in the area of Safeguarding. This contact is known as the National Children’s Officer (NCO). 

Yes, Sport Ireland has a Safeguarding Guidance Document for Children and Young people in Sport. The aim of this guidance document is to help sporting bodies create a culture of safety that promotes the welfare of children and young people engaged in sporting activities. This guidance document supports National Governing Bodies to meet their child safeguarding and child protection responsibilities which are cognisant of, and in line with, requirements under policy/legislation and with best practice. 

The Sport Ireland Staying Safe Online resource is a web-based information and guidance tool on internet safety predominately aimed at parents/guardians/coaches. The resource provides detailed content on all aspects of online safety.

The Sport Ireland Safe Sport app is an information and guidance tool for everyone involved in sport for children and young people. The app is aimed at creating greater awareness and understanding about safeguarding and best practice principles in children's sport. 

Sport Ireland has a Young Voices in Sport Toolkit. The purpose of this toolkit is to give volunteers and members of staff in sporting organisations a clear understanding of what they need to do to involve their young members in decision-making, from club level to national governing body. Although many of the activities are suitable for children of any age, those aged between 10 and 18 are the focus of this toolkit. 

For more information about this toolkit, contact the Sport Ireland Ethics Unit: ethics@sportireland.ie 

The National Vetting Bureau (Children and Vulnerable Persons) Acts 2012 - 2016 provides a statutory basis for the vetting of persons carrying out relevant work with children or vulnerable persons. The Act also creates offences and penalties for persons who fail to comply with its provisions. 

The Act stipulates that a relevant organisation shall not permit any person to undertake relevant work or activities on behalf of the organisation, unless the organisation receives a vetting disclosure from the National Vetting Bureau in respect of that person. 

Under the National Vetting Bureau (Children and Vulnerable Persons) Acts 2012-2016, it is compulsory for employers to obtain vetting disclosures in relation to anyone who is carrying out relevant work with children or vulnerable adults. The Acts create offences and penalties for persons who fail to comply with their provisions. Statutory obligations on employers in relation to Garda vetting requirements for persons working with children and vulnerable adults are set out in the Acts. 

National Vetting Bureau (Children and Vulnerable Persons) Acts 2012– 2016. 

Each National Governing Body (NGB) or Local Sports Partnership (LSP) is responsible for how they roll-out the vetting process within their organisation. Any club or individual inquiring about vetting procedures should contact their NGB or LSP. 

Yes. If you are Garda Vetted for a position in one organisation and wish to apply for another position working with children and young people in another organisation, you will need to be Garda Vetted again.   

Please refer to your own NGB or Organisation Safe Recruitment Procedures regarding re-vetting.  

For more information, please visit the National Vetting website here: National Vetting Bureau (garda.ie) or visit our page on Garda Vetting, here: Garda Vetting | Sport Ireland. 

As a development agency, Sport Ireland’s remit with regard to safeguarding is to develop and disseminate guidelines and codes of practice promoting best practice for the protection of children in sport consistent with child protection guidance and legislation. In order to advance this function, Sport Ireland engages with over 60 autonomous National Governing Bodies (NGBs) of Sport to raise awareness of and promote behaviours to uphold good practice and fair play in all sport.    

Sport Ireland’s Safeguarding Guidance Document for Children and Young People in Sport provides information, best practice principles and templates for organisations to refer to and use as necessary to meet the needs of their sport and their members.      

All NGBs of sport are autonomous organisations who are charged with the operation of their own sport. They are responsible for their own governance including disciplinary and complaints processes, competition rules, the implementation of policies and procedures etc. As a result, Sport Ireland does not have an enforcement role in this regard.     

The operations of any local club and any of its officials and members is a matter for the NGB. Sport Ireland has no role in the day-to-day operations of the NGB or any of its affiliated clubs and cannot interfere in the operations of independent autonomous sporting bodies.    

The safeguarding of children in sport is of paramount importance. Sport Ireland will continue to develop and invest in our ethics programme to ensure children and young people’s experiences of sport are fun, enjoyable and conducted in the spirit of fair play. Everyone, regardless of age or circumstance should participate in sport in a safe environment.