Mr. Liam Herrick:

I wish to respond to the Chairman's comments and then deal with what Senator Higgins had to say. The Chairman has provided a very important context for the negative experience of whistleblowers in many areas in recent years. In our view, there is a limit to what can be achieved by the legislation before us. That said, our recommendations and the recommendations of all other contributors point out that there is an opportunity for this committee and for the Oireachtas to ensure that we broaden the range of persons who can make protected disclosures and to make provision for important strengthening measures vis-à-visthe protections once people have made disclosures. There are practical steps that can be taken but, ultimately, there is a question here of political will. As has been noted in some of the submissions, we have had a troubling experience to date. Even at the level of reporting on the procedures and policies that public bodies are obliged to have in place, the record of providing that procedural, meta-information has been very poor. Perhaps that is something that this committee and the Oireachtas could take up in terms of holding those bodies to account on their failure to report.

Finally, we must also anticipate the role of the protected disclosures office and this goes to a question raised by Senator Higgins. We have to be realistic about how much can be achieved by this office in the early period. It will take time to be established and properly resourced but potentially, it should be playing the role that Senator Higgins talked about in terms of identifying patterns so that we can proactively and positively identify where in the system there are particular problems and target those areas for proactive action. That is what we would like to get to but without the political will and resources, it will take time to get to that point.