Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I concur with Deputy Mairéad Farrell. Again, my experience, even in the previous Dáil, was one where people who came to me with protected disclosures did so as a last case scenario. It was very difficult to get a reply from a Minister with responsibility in whatever was the relevant field concerning the protected disclosure. I remember raising such an issue on the floor of the previous Dáil and being told that it was a protected disclosure and what could the Minister do about it. Those were the words of a former Taoiseach in the House. I refer to my experience of the way whistleblowers are treated as well. The biggest worry here, and Deputy Mairéad Farrell is right about this, is that the process is strung out for so long. The financial pain is bad enough, but the mental torture and what happens to these whistleblowers is nothing short of degrading. I suppose that is the word I will use, and that is being very polite.

The Minister mentioned in the last section about going as far as is possible and getting additional protections. This Bill, as we said from the outset, should be the strongest and the best that can be produced for the people doing this for the public right. I raised a scenario with the Minister before regarding a situation where a whistleblower or whistleblowers come forward, a protected disclosure is made and the procedure is followed all the way to the top. Apparently, regarding the issues raised, and here is the crux of this matter, there is no procedure, as it stands, to guarantee that the whistleblower or whistleblowers are being protected while the investigation is ongoing. There is also no mechanism to truly find out if the issues reported have been resolved. There is no corridor of inquiry there in that regard. More important, sometimes misinformation is received back to say that the issues raised have been resolved, when additional protected disclosures state that the original complaint still stands and that the response given was misinformation.

It is important to recognise that anything that weakens this legislation will be dangerous. It is our responsibility to keep the Bill as strong as we can and to protect these people. I say that because I would guess that most of us in the House have protected disclosures on our desks as it is. They are not going to go away.