Mr. Aidan O'Driscoll:

As I stated, there are a few thousand staff in the Irish Prison Service. A relatively small number of people have come forward and made quite significant claims and allegations. These various issues are being examined in different fora. One of the key things we have introduced regarding protected disclosure in particular is external independent examination, both at the point of assessment, that is to say, assessing whether it is a protected disclosure, and at the point of investigation, that is to say, where it has been deemed a protected disclosure and one investigates the issue.