Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Yes. The amendment seeks to ensure that external advisers or professionals who may be contracted into a particular organisation - for example, auditors - would enjoy the full protection of the legislation. I have a concern that the legislation as currently worded would exclude not just auditors but accountants, financial advisers and professional advisers from those protections in the course of their work in circumstances in which they may uncover wrongdoing, which is not implausible by any means given other events that are further back but still in the recent history of the State. I believe such contracted persons should be protected and taken account of in this legislation to ensure they enjoy the same protections as others from, for instance, any form of retaliation that could emerge should they come forward with information of wrongdoing. It is not hard to imagine circumstances in which there would be a fairly limited number of people in different disciplines that provide certain types of professional support, analysis or advice to different organisations. That is the purpose of the amendment.