Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Similarly, the peer support piece was one of the points the representatives I spoke with were quite passionate about. I also took from the conversation that there are schemes in place but they vary and, in some instances, are little more than box-ticking exercises that do not really grasp the issue at hand. A comparison was made between the employee assistance programme and the need for peer support together with the opportunity that might be afforded to suspend a licence temporarily without any assumptions being made in relation to it. A comparison was made on the nature and extent of the schemes in place for smaller companies against an appreciation of the cultural differences between companies, including internationally.

The important piece regarding confidentiality is that it should be peer to peer but with a degree of removal. That point was made about smaller companies in particular. If the schemes were in-house, they did not provide for the type of confidentiality that is needed. The representatives pointed to the challenges of Covid and the implications it has had for people. They mentioned issues like sexuality that, again, can be difficult for people to contend with and to share with people they are working with daily in a very closed setting. That is where this amendment comes from. From listening in an open way to the representatives, there is, at the very least, significant room for improvement on the regime in place at the minute.