John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Earlier, Mr. Deering stated: "I believe a society should be judged by the way it treats its most vulnerable members." Society includes Government as well. Government has a duty of care to its people, which it does not exercise very well. That brings me to culture. Mr. Deering stated that he does not believe it is an issue solely to do with culture.

I happen to disagree with that. I will start on that point. I believe there is a serious problem with culture in the Civil Service and public service. Quite frankly, it shocks me. It is a culture in which the person or individual is easily disposed of in the most awful of ways. I will give the examples of former garda sergeant, Maurice McCabe; Julie Grace, who worked in local government; the Grace case in the HSE; Sean O'Brien and Noel McGree in the Prison Service; the former garda, John Wilson; Jonathan Sugarman and Shane Kavanagh, who worked in financial services; the females in the Defence Forces; and, most recently, the legacy case in Cork Institute Technology, CIT. The new president of Munster Technological University, MTU, has refused to meet two Members of these Houses to discuss an issue relating to protected disclosures. I can name all of those people because these cases are in the public domain. All of those people represent lost opportunities. In each of those cases, the individual is no longer with the Department, agency or organisation they complained about. That reflects awfully on the apparatus of the country, the Government and the Civil Service.

Let us look at the cases involving the HSE, including the Grace case. Mr. Deering will be familiar with that scandal. There are good people in the HSE. There are good people within all of the organisations I have mentioned. However, there seems to be an ability to trample over the rights of individuals at the cost of their mental health, lives and so forth. There is very little being done about it. I do not want Mr. Deering to comment on these individual cases but I want to outline what I have learned from them. There was a commission of inquiry in the case of Maurice McCabe. Julie Grace's case is ongoing in local government. She is being stonewalled. The answers to parliamentary questions and her efforts to get at the truth and get a decision have been nothing short of deplorable. Sean O'Brien's case with the Prison Service again involves a family and individual destroyed by the inaction of the State. It is the same for Noel McGree. He won his case but the Department has refused to honour the outcome. John Wilson was destroyed within the Garda. Jonathan Sugarman never worked in financial services again after coming forward in line with legislation. The legacy case I mentioned involving CIT, and now MTU, again involves another career that was absolutely destroyed. All of these people and more made use of the legislation on protected disclosures.

I believe that to be a culture. Anyone rocking the boat is resented and those involved will do anything to protect the status quo. That is the culture Mr. Deering is up against. The chairman of the Top Level Appointments Committee, TLAC, and Dr. Eddie Molloy have written about this extensively. Dr. Molloy holds the same position but the chairman has now changed his. It is also interesting that all of this continues. Is Mr. Deering confident that he can deal with the culture that has caused all of these lives to be absolutely ruined?