Ms Ciara Morgan:

The issues raised by the Senator are funding civil society, the definition of "worker", the question of NDAs and confidentiality and the discretionary aspects in the legislation. I might cover funding civil society and the definition of "worker", I will try to say a bit on NDA and confidentialities and then pass over to my colleague, Mr. Keane, who might pick up anything I missed on NDA and confidentialities and cover those discretionary aspects.

To speak to the funding civil society, our Department probably has a bad reputation in relation to that but this is something we are cognisant of. At the moment, there is an Exchequer grant given through our own Department's Vote under transparency and that is directly to support the Speak Up helpline and the legal advice centre. There is an ongoing conversation with them in regard to that grant and the amount of that for next year. That will be discussed as part of the budgetary process.

On the definition of "worker", which the Senator rightly pointed out, it is a very much expanded definition of "worker", away from what would be the traditional employment law understanding of a worker, and that presents challenges. We have been engaging with the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel as to how best to manage that in the legislation.

There are three pieces. The first piece is for very clear definitions in the legislation. We will be working with the drafters as to how to achieve that. The second piece relates to how one puts that into plain English in the statutory guidance and makes it as accessible as possible.

The third element is awareness-raising measures. We do not have those planned out in detail yet, but they are an important piece of the puzzle to which we will need to turn our minds. This feeds into the question that the Senator and the Chairman raised about people being aware of their rights and employers being aware of their obligations.

Regarding NDAs and confidentiality, it comes back to awareness raising and clarity. Mr. Keane might add further on that and on the discretionary aspects.