Mr. Ronan Kennedy:

Under the current protected disclosures regime, public bodies are required to issue a report on the number of protected disclosure cases that are forwarded to them every year. I am not sure about the rest of the public service but I know that in local authorities, for example, the level of such reporting has not been great in the past few years. In 2018, only 54% of local authorities actually put forward their reports and in 2019 the figure was 45%. It would be a good start if those reports from public bodies included data on false disclosures or disclosures that were not actioned through lack of evidence. As the Deputy said, that could be a good start. I am not sure about private sector bodies. The protected disclosures office could have a role in receiving those reports and then issuing a report to the Minister annually so we can see how the legislation is actually operating. In terms of the reports coming in, data on whether there are any disclosures that are not actioned due to lack of evidence and the speed with which disclosures are dealt would be useful so that we can see how we are progressing, year on year.