Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

Fine Gael is happy to support the Labour Party Bill on the whistleblowers issue. If the outrageous scandals exposed in the great bastions of Irish society over the past few years have proved anything, it is that Ireland needs whistleblowers and plenty of them. It is said that all it takes for evil to thrive is for good people to do nothing. I firmly believe that when good people act for the good of our country and society, against the received wisdom, we in here should make it our business to protect them, and that is what this Bill would do.

In the case of child abuse, for example, the local industrial school or reformatory kept the wider community in business, be it as cleaners, butchers, doctors, housekeepers, gardeners, inspectors, grocers or bakers. If there had been a charter to protect any one of them brave enough to blow the whistle on what they saw, would that guilty minority of our State-appointed, church-appointed "betters" have gone on inflicting terror on small boys and girls for as long as they did?

Times are certainly changing in this country. As a nation, we are overcoming our colonial past and breaking the taboos about our traditional "betters". Confident and well educated, we are leaving behind our culture of deference to those in authority, be they church, banks or politics. With the Neary case, we are leaving behind our deference to medicine, one of the last bastions of the status quo.

As people often remind me, patients in our hospitals have had a surreal experience in their thousands. A sister rings the bell and right on cue, a doctor sweeps into the ward with a gaggle of students in tow. He peers at you over his half glasses from the papal balcony — the end of the bed — and then proceeds to recount your entire private medical history to his captive trainee audience, and everyone else within earshot behind the curtains. The nurses and students dance attendance and from the disadvantage of the depths of the bed, you mumble your thanks to the doctor. You might be reminded that it is "Mister" as they turn and sweep out, as one, on to their next appointment. The subtext always being that the privilege is all yours. Anyway, has everyone not heard the line "trust me, I'm a doctor"?

It was exactly that culture of deference that led to the Neary case and perhaps more like it, but that will be no more. I believe the many excellent practitioners in the medical profession, and others, will welcome this legislation and the more democratic, collegial and accountable approach to their work which it will bring.

I very much regret that in an age when people have lost touch with what passes for politics, the Government, by being so timid around the issue of this whistleblower legislation proposed by the Labour Party, is missing the chance to restore politics in the public heart as capable of making a real difference to their lives, by changing things for the better. Normally so rankly expedient, the kid gloves are around this legislation, where the Government is obsessing over the legal niceties and fussing over the letter as opposed to the spirit of the legislation. The approach is not just odd, it is disappointing and infuriating.

The Government could proceed, instigate the protection, make things safer for the person, the patient, the consumer, and deal with potential difficulties later, but it will not do so. While it is obsessing over sectoral interests, who knows what scandals will continue undetected and unpublicised? When one considers that this Government, which strangled the Freedom of Information Act, is the most secretive since the Haughey era, one can see its strangely cautious approach as a serious case of nerves, or "be careful for what you wish for".

The debate over the past two nights highlights a sharp distinction between the approach of the Fine Gael and Labour parties and the approach of the Government. While both sides support the protection of genuine whistleblowers, there is a fundamental difference in how we each would implement that commitment. The Labour and Fine Gael parties believe that a broad cross-cutting protection of whistleblowers is necessary. On the other hand, the Government takes the view that a sectoral approach on a case by case basis is better.

I believe there is a fundamental flaw in the Government's approach. We should look back at some of the scandals referred to by Deputy Howlin which have afflicted Irish society in recent years, such as the DIRT inquiry, a scandal involving financial institutions and offshore activities, nursing homes and, most recently, the Neary case. It is only after the damage has been done that we begin to get an understanding of what happened and why. In almost all these scandals, if an effective whistleblower protection was in place, it is certainly possible that someone might have come forward at a much earlier stage and prevented damage to patients or financial loss to consumers. The Government's approach has been to close the stable door after every horse has bolted. By definition, that means that for scandals about which we may yet have to hear, no protection will be in place for whistleblowers. A broad, cross-cutting measure which provides a broad level of protection for whistleblowers should be put in place at least until the various sectoral measures have been enacted. For example, if the Government suggested that this Bill should be the subject of a sunset clause to come into effect in five years' time when sectoral protections have been put in place, it would be a move in the right direction.

Deputies of all parties come across whistleblowers in various guises. Last year I was approached by somebody who said they had a conscience and wanted to tell me something about the computer system in the Health Service Executive and the health boards, and so the PPARS issue came to light. That person had no protection. Their identity is still unknown but they had great courage and wanted to tell the nation about the issue.

The Government's approach is unnecessarily divisive. If there are legal difficulties with cross-cutting whistleblower legislation, let them be teased out on Committee Stage of the Bill. The process would certainly be quicker than waiting for the Government to legislate sectorally case by case. I make the plea to the Minister to accept the referral of the Bill to Committee Stage. Let us work out any legal issues that need to be worked out afterwards. Let us put in place a support for genuine whistleblowers who act in the public interest, in the interest of patients and in the interests of consumers. We strongly support the Bill proposed by the Labour Party.

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