Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)

The difficulty with this Bill is that the things a whistleblower could do are constrained. The Government was wrong to have adopted a policy to provide legislation in regard to whistleblowers in, as the Minister puts it, a sectoral context rather than a global context. A global piece of legislation could have been drafted which contained within it, for example, specific exceptions that might have been necessary regarding the manner in which the Garda Síochána needs to conduct investigations.

I was interested to note the Minister's reference to the 1998 Act which provided protection for those who in good faith reported child abuse. That was the first Act dealing with whistleblowers and it was introduced by me in this House as a Private Members' Bill. It remains today of particular importance in the area of child abuse. It is noteworthy that the manner in which the current Fianna Fáil-Green Government deals with Opposition Bills, such as that published today, would make it impossible to have such Bills enacted, just as Deputy Rabbitte's very excellent Bill dealing with whistleblowers has found itself lost in some sort of legislative black hole because of the Government's approach to it. The Government, which did not have the courage to vote it down, just sent it off to a committee controlled by Fianna Fáil to let it languish.

I want to make one point only. Among the issues the amendment I have tabled covers is to allow someone to act as a whistleblower where the person is aware of "conduct which has led, is leading or is likely to lead to a misuse or substantial waste of public funds". That conduct may not be corruption within the narrow confines of the criminal law as is defined in our corruption Acts but it is conduct that has been all too prevalent and has cost this State a huge amount.

For example, if someone in FÁS had blown the whistle a long time ago, how much money would have been saved for the taxpayer? One can argue whether what happened in FÁS was corruption in a criminal context or simply mismanagement and maladministration. However, if there is substantial maladministration within a public body where hundreds of thousands of euro of taxpayers' money is disappearing down the toilet, an employee of that body should be able to blow the whistle, know their job is protected and instigate by their conduct an appropriate investigation and accountability for the loss.

What the Minister will vote against today is allowing for whistleblowing in that type of circumstance. The sectoral approach has proved to be grossly and totally inadequate with every new revelation of misuse of funds by State agencies and bodies that is discovered and addressed within the Committee of Public Accounts or by the Comptroller and Auditor General. We need a better and more rigorous law in this area.

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