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

I move amendment No. 50:

In page 45, to delete lines 13 to 23 and substitute the following: “ “16A.(1) The identity of any person concerned shall be protected by a prescribed person or the Commissioner, as the case may be, to whom a report is made or transmitted, as the case may be, or by an other suitable person (within the meaning of section 10C or 10D) to whom a report is transmitted, under this Act, for as long as any investigation triggered by the report is ongoing.

(2) Subsection (1) shall not preclude the disclosure of the identity of any person concerned where the prescribed person, the Commissioner or the suitable person, as the case may be, reasonably considers that such disclosure is necessary for the purposes of this Act or where such disclosure is otherwise authorised or required by law, as the case may be.

(3) Sections 7A, 10B, 10C, 10D, 10E, 16B and 22 shall, with any necessary modifications, apply to the protection of the identity of persons concerned as those provisions apply to the protection of the

identity of reporting persons.”.”.

This is an amendment to the wording of section 16B regarding the protection of the identity of persons named in a report that this shall not preclude any actions a prescribed person or the commissioner may take to follow-up on a report. This reflects a number of concerns raised with the Department since the Bill was published that this provision was too restrictive and could impede effective investigation of wrongdoing. The key purpose behind this amendment is to ensure that the legislation does not in any way stand in the way of a prescribed person or the commissioner from taking such actions as they see fit to address the wrongdoing reported. There have been issues with the duty to protect the identity of the reporting person. The amendments that have been made to section 16 of the principal Act and the various provisions setting out conditions under which a report may be transmitted to a more suitable competent authority go a long way to addressing that.

I do not want to repeat the same mistakes as regards confidentiality that in the past led to some employers and prescribed persons being paralysed by the confidentiality provisions in the legislation as regards the actions they could take to address the wrongdoing reported. This amendment provides the necessary clarification in this regard.