Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 1:

In page 12, to delete line 11.

I will take amendments Nos.1 and 2 together. This is a technical amendment to section 6(7) of the principal Act to remove the reference to subsection 7A of section 5 of the principal Act as it is to be repealed by section 3 of the Bill. Section 5(7A) was inserted into the principal Act by the European Union (Protection of Trade Secrets) Regulations 2018, which provided for the transposition of the trades secrets directive, TSD. The TSD required that the person who made a protected disclosure could only disclose information deemed to be a trade secret if they acted for the purpose of protecting the public interest. Article 21.7 of the whistleblowing directive clarifies the legal position vis-à-visthe TSD on the one hand, and the protection of whistleblowers on the other, and makes clear that a person who makes a disclosure of a trade secret in accordance with the rules of the whistleblowing directive should not be subject to this public interest test. Accordingly, this provision is being repealed. This amendment tidies up the principal Act by removing a cross-reference to section 5(7A) that will be rendered redundant by its repeal by section 3. These are, therefore, technical amendments.