Under the guise of 20-yearold student 'Jenny Roche', the Sunday Tribune phoned 100 hotels around Ireland looking for part-time babysitting work, and asking to be put on the hotel's list of babysitters.

Almost half (42) of the hotels surveyed asked 'Jenny' only for her name, number and . . . in some cases . . . age, address, and experience. In a few cases, the hotels also enquired as to 'Jenny's' hourly rates, her availability, her willingness to work after midnight, and whether she had any preferences as to the age of the children. In none of the 42 cases did the hotels mention the necessity of a CV, references, or the possibility of an interview process in the future.

A further 22 hotels did request that a CV be sent in, and/or that references were required. In every request for references, 'Jenny' asked if it was acceptable to use references from neighbours for whom she had babysat in the past, and in every instance she was told 'yes'.

Only five of the 100 hotels surveyed said that an interview would be required, along with a CV and/or references.

Of the remaining 31 hotels, 17 said they did not employ babysitters externally, but rather used staff who were willing to do the job in their spare time. Nine hotels said that they did not provide any babysitting service, and only five hotels said that they employed official babysitting agencies for the job.

Some of the top hotels in Ireland were among those which did not appear to have any substantial vetting process for potential babysitters. When 'Jenny' contacted the Conrad Hotel on St Stephen's Green, Dublin, she was asked only for her name, number, address, and whether she had any experience.

However, when the Sunday Tribune later contacted management at the hotel, the front house manager, John Hegarty, said that all babysitters are interviewed and references are required. "We would always ask people to come in for an interview, " he said."In any case, we normally use our own staff."

The Radisson SAS St Helen's in Stillorgan said that 'Jenny' should send in a CV, and then she would be put on the list. The management later admitted that the hotel has employed babysitters in this way in the past, but said it was currently in the process of finding an official babysitting agency to facilitate guests.

"We are in a transition period, " said Monica Gostomska, front officer manager at St Helen's. "Very soon we will have a babysitting agency, and guests will be signing contracts with them if they want to employ babysitters."

The Clarence Hotel on Dublin's quays, owned by Irish band U2, told 'Jenny' to drop in a CV, and that it would be "obviously quite important to meet for a chat". Anna Wood, sales and marketing manager for the hotel, later told the Sunday Tribune that the hotel had employed the same babysitters for years, but that she wasn't aware of the extent to which new babysitters would be vetted, or whether qualifications would be required.

The lack of background checks and demand for qualifications were described as "highly alarming" by the chief executive of the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (ISPCC), Paul Gilligan. "This is not acceptable, " he said. "The hotel is offering unsupervised access to a person who may well be alone in a bedroom with children. This could be a very easy way for a paedophile to get access to children. If a hotel is running a gym or leisure centre, it wouldn't dream of employing someone not fully qualified."

The chairwoman of the National Parents' Council (Primary), Fionnuala Kilfeather, also said she was very concerned by the results of the investigation. "It would be very easy for a parent to take it for granted that if a hotel offered them a babysitting service, that that babysitter had been vetted and asked for references, " she said.

However, the chief executive of the Irish Hotels Federation, John Power, said that while he would be "horrified, concerned and deeply disappointed" if hotels were not running adequate checks on babysitters, he did not believe that this was the case.

"We are a very responsible industry and my members would be very careful about who they employ, " he said. "I would expect hotels would be checking with the gardai about people's backgrounds. Since I've been in this industry I've never come across a child abuse case in a hotel, and the proof of the pudding is in the eating."