Pat Carey (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)

Like previous speakers, I welcome the opportunity to comment on this Bill. Without wishing to be condescending to Deputy Rabbitte as he is the last person in this House to whom I would wish to be condescending, he has provided us with an opportunity to address a very important issue. I might pay for any condescension shown to Deputy Rabbitte at a future Question Time.

This issue is very important. Despite the good intentions of Deputy Rabbitte and his party in 1999 and in view of the admitted legal complexities of this issue which were discovered by the Parliamentary Counsel and the Attorney General, it is important that we move along on a sectoral basis. I do not say this simply because I sit on the Government side of the House.

I took the trouble to research provisions for whistleblowers in other jurisdictions. If time permits, I will draw people's attention to a recent case in Australia, which has the best whistleblowing legislation I am aware of and yet still experienced problems with reporting. If the current approach to the protection of persons reporting child abuse had not been taken, would people prepared to blow the whistle on those who abuse children still lack protection? I understand that a facility for whistleblowers was inserted into section 50 of the Competition Act. Deputy Hogan and other Deputies will be more familiar with the matter than I am. Here we have an example of what is important.

We must ensure that there are fewer get-out clauses than are preferable in a single Bill. The approach taken by the Government, which involves inserting a clause into each appropriate piece of legislation, is more likely to ensure a speedy implementation of measures to combat faults which emerge from time to time in public life. The ethics in public office legislation is a good example of this approach. It affords protection for those who blow the whistle on wrongdoing and affords an opportunity for serious investigation. The provision of immunity from civil liability to persons who, for example, report abuses covered by the Protections for Persons Reporting Child Abuse Act 1998, is very important. As a result of this Act, people who report allegations of child abuse in good faith know they will be protected. The Ethics in Public Office Act 1995 is another example of such legislation.

If it were not for the provisions in section 27 of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005, which provide for protection against dismissal and penalisation of employees who in good faith take steps to protect themselves or others in a workplace situation, there would be much more abuse of workers. Last year, a number of people in my constituency reported very obvious breaches of health and safety legislation on construction sites. Were it not for the protection afforded to them by the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act, it is highly unlikely that they would have been prepared to come forward with the information they provided to me, among others.

As parliamentarians, we must address an issue which arose in a case involving Senator Jim Higgins and Deputy Howlin. The issue concerned the integrity of the communications system in respect of Members of this House. How do we ensure confidentiality and ensure that those who come to us with information are adequately protected? We must examine how we can encourage people to come to us with information.

I was struck by a recent case in Queensland in Australia involving an overseas-trained doctor called Dr. Jayant Patel. A nurse named Toni Hoffman told her MP, Robert Messenger, about the doctor's disastrous surgical exploits, which led to him being dubbed "Dr. Death" by his colleagues. An inquiry was subsequently held and a report was produced, some extracts of which I have before me. Even in a country with the best whistleblowing legislation in the world, the report concluded that Ms Hoffman's disclosure to Mr. Messenger was not protected by the Whistleblower Protection Act 1994. It concluded that the fact that she was forced to reveal her concerns to Mr. Messenger to ensure they were dealt with and the fact that her disclosure was not protected by whistleblowing legislation revealed the failure of the current system to protect whistleblowers. The report drew this conclusion in respect of an area where there is already a significant amount of legislation.

The report by the electoral and administrative review commission, which was set up to inquire into the need for various legal, administrative and parliamentary reforms in Queensland, contains a number of instructive recommendations. The EARC report summarised the countervailing interests that deserve appropriate recognition and protection in the design of a balanced system for encouraging and protecting whistleblowing that is in the public interest in the following way: (a) the interests of the public in the exposure, investigation or correction of illegal conduct, and dangers to public health and safety; (b) the interests of the whistleblower are being protected from retaliation, and in seeing action is taken on the whistleblowing disclosure; (c) the interests of persons against whom allegations are made in good faith which are inaccurate or, worse still, against whom false or misleading allegations are made; and (d) the interests of an organisation affected by a whistleblowing disclosure in not having its operations unduly disrupted, causing unwarranted interference with its pursuit of its business or administrative goals.

There are recommendations for reform. It suggests that the laws should be structured in such a way as to ensure the system works. This is probably appropriate to what we are debating. It should provide for a proper investigation of problems and contain mechanisms to guarantee that these are detected and corrected. The system did not work in the Patel case because the health department was part of the problem. Its culture was such that Ms Hoffman was wasting her time raising her concerns with her superiors, yet the Whistleblowers (Protection) Act 1994 makes it clear that the only body to which Ms Hoffman could have complained was Queensland Health.

There are several other recommendations which ought to be borne in mind in the framing of legislation. In the interest of the speedy implementation of legislation, it is better to take the approach adopted by the Government until mechanisms are in place which are proved to be robust enough to deal with the complaints that emerge rather than to go down the present route and wait some time before introducing legislation similar to what is proposed in the Labour Party-Fine Gael motion whereby there is a stand alone Bill.

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