Mr. Pat Keane:

We have looked at what has been done in other European countries. As Mr. Menton said in his opening statement, Ireland is considered to be one of the leading countries in this area. Most recently the International Bar Association rated us joint second in the world for our whistleblower legislation, so it is often the case that other countries to us.

However, we do keep an eye on developments in other countries in the years since the protected disclosures legislation was passed. We look at European countries in particular and especially the Netherlands because it has taken the approach of establishing a dedicated whistleblowing agency so we certainly wanted to examine how that would work. We also looked at Latvia, which is kind of similar in the way it is set up, especially in the way it organises its competent authorities, or prescribed persons as we have here. We have also looked at other countries, particularly around how they organise what matters are within the role of the ombudsman unit, which is obviously one of things that influenced our decision to establish a protected disclosures office.

There are other countries we have looked at. If there is a particular point on which the Deputy would like me to go into in more detail, I will try my best to answer.