Mr. Philip Brennan:

I would not have concerns that the new legislation will lower standards. I think it will strengthen standards. The directive does have a non-regression clause. We are one of ten countries in the EU that already have whistleblowing legislation. We are not allowed to go backwards on that. I raised one issue in my presentation with regard to that. In the general scheme of things, I believe this legislation will strengthen the provisions rather than weaken them.

The big issue with protection is separating the problems from the people. There seems to be a propensity always to try to concentrate on who is raising the issue and why they are doing so. What we need to do is to strengthen those parts where the disclosure can be made to somebody who will not disclose the identity of the whistleblower back into the organisation at all, keeping it independent of the organisation all together. The best focus is concentrating on the problem rather than the person. I would say do not mark the man, play the game. The focus should be on that. I would not be concerned that there is a general regression in the legislation.