Ms Stephanie Casey:

I want to refer the committee to research carried out by NUI Galway and the University of Warwick, which looked at the price of speaking up. In a study of 92 whistleblowers across different countries, they found that 63% were dismissed, 62% were demoted and 28% ended up resigning as a result of speaking up. They found that the average cost of making a protected disclosure is in the order of about €28,000 per year to a whistleblower and the average income that is lost to a whistleblower, because of loss of income or a loss of job, is about €65,000 per annum. Therefore, there is a very significant cost involved for whistleblowers, which speaks to the point Dr. Kierans was making around the necessity to look at removing the cap on compensation.