Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Finally, I ask Ms Casey, Ms Heffernan or Dr. Kierans to answer the following. Obviously, in the public mind, protected disclosure and whistleblowers are represented by people such as Sergeant McCabe or the great investigative work that Mr. Clifford does. However the vast majority of reliance upon this Act takes place within the sphere of employment law and it never really gets into the public domain. It consists of disputes between employers and employees. Many of the cases end up going to the WRC. Others are resolved before then.

Do the witnesses think that it is an issue that under the 2014 Act, an employee can receive up to five years' salary by way of compensation if they are penalised, but if they just leave under unfair dismissal in the orthodox way, they can only get up to two years' salary by way of compensation? I am not asking the witnesses to give a definitive view on it but do they think that it is an issue that there is a difference between what an employee could receive by claiming protected disclosure if there is penalisation on the one hand, as opposed to just orthodox unfair dismissal, on the other?