Ms Orla Keane:

I will be brief because I see a number of people wanting to get in. Consideration may need to be given to the issue of anonymous complaints and there being an obligation to deal with them subject to certain criteria. That appears to be a stumbling block, as we have seen from Transparency International Ireland. That is one thing I would ask the committee to look at.

While the proposed Bill refers to supports, it is not entirely clear as to what these are. Those supports should be set out clearly and should move to the new office. I emphasise that these supports are important because supports should be given to people at an early stage so that they do not end up in difficulty with their employers. These people should be appropriately advised so that they never end up in litigation or getting fired, as Deputy Doherty said.

The lack of data, which a number of members have mentioned, is another issue. There is a requirement to report in the Bill. Each public body has to report certain matters in its annual report. I should say that, when I did this section of the commission's annual report a number of years ago, I was taken aback by how little information was requested. At the time, we did not have a protected disclosure but additional elements could be included to increase the reporting requirements on public bodies. That should be relatively easy to do. The additional data that is desired should be set out in the legislation. The private bodies with more than 50 employees should also be subject to this and should face reporting requirements. Those requirements could be linked to annual reports or financial reports. Perhaps consideration needs to be given to penalising public bodies where a recipient's name is disclosed and to how that is deal with. That is quite a significant step to take and a major consideration but, if we want to balance the playing field for the parties involved, that may need to be considered.