Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 22 September 2021

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach

General Scheme of the Protected Disclosures (Amendment) Bill 2021: Discussion

Mr. John Wilson:

First, it is important that the role of our politicians is not diluted in any legislation, because only for certain politicians that I have named already, including former Deputy Mick Wallace, Deputy John McGuinness and a few others, I shudder to think where I would be today.

The 2014 legislation gave a certain amount of protection to bona fide whistleblowers in relation to protecting them when they made their protected disclosures. However, financially, and I mentioned it this morning to one of the members here, the 2014 Act allowed for the payment of up to five years' salary to a whistleblower. That is not good enough. What good is five years' pay to someone who is in their early or late 30s or in their 40s? It is important that that issue be addressed as a matter of urgency. Sorry, I cannot recall the first part of the Deputy's question.

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