Ms Ciara Morgan:

I want to address the point made by the Chair on whether the legislation is enough. I would say that the legislation on its own is never going to be enough, but it is the structure and the robust framework that we can put in place. On the question on bodies acting in good faith, previous witnesses referred to culture and it resonated with me. How do you support a cultural shift to recognise the value and the bravery of people who are reporting wrongdoing, often at significant cost to themselves? This is an area where we want to do more. We have plans to enact the legislation, but that is not enough. To transpose the directive, implementation measures are required. We have mentioned that we are going to be doing more comprehensive guidance to support public bodies in the first instance, and awareness-raising measures with business. We have a good relationship with Transparency International Ireland and we keep in touch with and take input from it in regard to what might be needed. It is about pushing that culture and tying into those wider reform measures in our Department on the public service reform side and the Civil Service renewal side to see how many angles can we come at this from. It is very much a work in progress, and it is not the full answer, but it is something that we have to keep working on.