Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

We all have a frustration around protected disclosures. It is not exclusive to the Department of Justice or to the Irish Prison Service. There appears to be a general pattern right across the process whereby people find engaging with protected disclosures can be very unsatisfactory with regard to career progression and the feeling that people cannot go back to work without there being a consequence. We definitely all wish to see an overall review in that regard because whistleblowers play a very important part and should be encouraged and not penalised. We all have significant frustrations about the process. The problem is that very often those frustrations come about by people identifying themselves and their dissatisfaction with the process. Sometimes that is the only sight we have of it. The learnings are the important thing and most important is that people do not feel it is to their disadvantage that they come forward. We all feel this acutely. We will come back to that.