Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein)
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I echo what Senator Buttimer just said and welcome the witnesses. I listened to Mr. Justice MacCabe and one thing that struck me as a red flag was on protected disclosures and how they are dealt with. Obviously, the commission is dealing with protected disclosures within An Garda Síochána. However, would the commission also deal with protected disclosures from the public that would also involve An Garda Síochána?

I am very interested in this because I spent the past 18 months looking at the changes in the protected disclosures legislation in Europe. Yesterday we worked on practically signing off on the new Protected Disclosures (Amendment) Bill 2022. Can the public send in whatever would be a protected disclosure that involves An Garda Síochána or even the Courts Service? Would GSOC deal with them directly?

Mr. Justice MacCabe spoke about rights and how everybody is entitled to rights and that the certain stages in this. Mr. Hume said that in some cases GSOC get complaints, which it passes on to the relevant sergeant or superintendent in a station who will deal with it. Once the local officer takes it on, does GSOC get feedback to let it know whether the issues have been resolved? The reason I ask that goes back to the original question on protected disclosures. Until this Bill is passed and signed off on, there is very little within the current protected disclosure law to establish whether the rights of a whistleblower or whistleblowers have been respected, whether they have been protected and whether the issues they raised have been dealt with. There is still no follow-up to establish whether that has happened. Is there a link from the top down and a link back up so that there is harmony and everyone knows what is happening?