Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Protected Disclosures Bill, which most people will generally refer to as the whistleblowers bill. We welcome the legislation, which is good and important. It is part of the changing society in which we live. Years ago many people would not have been happy with legislation such as this but now people are more open and up-front in their dealings with others. There is much more coverage of events today and people are quite happy to see greater levels of disclosure. That is why this legislation is so necessary.

My party will be supporting this Bill. As the Minister said, we have had a significant amount of discussion on it at committee level during the pre-legislative stage. Various people made contributions to those discussions. The Bill has already been before the Seanad, where there was quite an amount of discussion on it. Notwithstanding all of that, a number of amendments will need to be considered because the legislation can be improved and clarified in some respects. We will deal with those amendments as we discuss the legislation on Committee and Report Stages.

Given its topicality, I wish to deal with the recent public debate about the whistleblower from the Garda Síochána who appeared before the Committee of Public Accounts. It is very germane to the legislation being discussed now. I was conscious last week, as a member of the Committee of Public Accounts, of this issue and wondered how what was happening in practice would gel with the legislation before us now. I am pleased that the Minister specifically dealt with that issue. I might have a slightly different take on it but I am very pleased that the Minister devoted a page of his script to that issue, which is very important.

The whistleblower who appeared before the Committee of Public Accounts was dealing with the issue of a loss of income to the State, which is very much within the remit of the committee. I understand that a lot of people who commented and reported on it were, perhaps, too busy to check out the source of the issue to begin with. Some of them - members of the media and politicians - were happy to jump on a bandwagon, mainly within the confines of this building and argue that the committee was straying beyond its remit. However, once they got away from the bubble that surrounds Leinster House, they discovered that the public was absolutely delighted that our national Parliament was holding people to account, dealing with the issues, getting answers and making progress. I hope the Committee of Public Accounts will produce a report on its hearings in the very near future because I would not like that report to be delayed for too long. The public of Ireland felt that the Parliament was actually relevant. That did not happen through the Chamber but through the committee system and the people of Ireland were happy that it happened. Members of the committee have heard that from people they meet on a daily basis.

The Committee of Public Accounts has a very specific remit, namely to deal with matters contained in the reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General who wrote a specific chapter on the cancellation of fixed penalty notices as a result of driving incidents. The chapter itself, chapter 7, was quite short but on page 1 of his report, the Comptroller and Auditor General went out of his way to point out that a current serving member of the Garda Síochána called to his office last year and was interviewed for hours. On foot of that interview, the Comptroller and Auditor General, during the course of the audit, proceeded to investigate the points made by the whistleblower. The Comptroller and Auditor General did not reprint, reproduce or take what the whistleblower had said as fact but conducted his own inquiry, having been alerted to an issue and lo and behold, he found that everything the whistleblower had said stood up. In fact, in some cases, the situation was even more serious than the whistleblower had suggested and the Comptroller and Auditor General produced a chapter on that. At around the same time, the whistleblower wrote to the Joint Committee on Justice, Equality and Defence, at the suggestion of the then Minister for Justice and Equality. He also wrote a similar letter to the Committee of Public Accounts. In fact, the two letters were identical, save for an additional sentence in the letter to the Committee of Public Accounts referring to the fact that the issue referred specifically to a loss of income to the State and should be examined by the committee in that context. It is a standard procedure in this House that no two committees examine the same issue in parallel so the Joint Committee on Justice, Equality and Defence handed it over to the Committee of Public Accounts based on the fact that the issue was dealt with in the Comptroller and Auditor General's report and was related to a loss of income to the State. The whistleblower has suggested that the loss of income could amount to €5 million per annum. The Comptroller and Auditor General does not put a figure on it but that is the type of money we are talking about; he did not check every last one of the cancellations.

Up to 2012, there were 700 cases of notices being cancelled on the basis of "medical emergencies". When the Comptroller and Auditor General produced his report and the hullabaloo started, the Commissioner instructed his people not to cancel fixed penalty notices unless the reasons were verified and genuine and, lo and behold, in the last three months of last year no cancellations were issued. That proves that what was happening was wrong.

When the Commissioner got an independent report and not one by written by one of his own staff, it was proven to him externally that an issue existed and he did take action, which resulted in savings to the State. I suggest that the whistleblower has probably ensured the State is €1.5 million better off as a result of his whistleblowing. However, I do not think it was ever admitted by the Garda Síochána that the whistleblower had a valid case. In fact, the Commissioner was disparaging when he said - I paraphrase - that he found the process of what the whistleblower was doing disgusting. It was unfortunate of him to use such a phrase. He kept referring to “my force” and to one of his subordinates doing such a thing. It would lead one to conclude that there would be formal or informal consequences for the individual whistleblower. I hope the purpose of the legislation is to ensure that does not happen.

I hope the spirit of the legislation to which the Minister referred is carried through by the Garda Síochána. Sections 18 and 19 deal with the matter. The inspiration for it comes from the Garda Síochána, which always seems to be a special case. We accept that there must be protection for the State when matters could adversely affect the security of the State, the defence of the State or international relations of the State. I take issue with the latter point because "international relations" covers embassies, consulates and diplomatic missions. Such information could include reasons for taking a decision to close an embassy or to reopen one. The Government should not be given protection in the making of such political or administrative decisions just because they have an impact on relations with other states. In the normal course of a country’s business, unless it is a serious issue affecting security or defence, a shield should not be provided for normal functions of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in terms of embassies. Members will understand to what I refer in that regard.

I welcome the provision in section 19 that the Minister will require an amendment to the Garda Síochána Act 2005 to take account of the new legislation. I propose that such an amendment be made by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Howlin. That is a compliment to the Minister. I would have more confidence in him in bringing forward the amendment than in the line Minister with responsibility for the Garda Síochána, the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Shatter. The Bill cuts across Departments and the Minister, Deputy Howlin, would get agreement from the Government, including the line Minister.

The legislation will impact on dozens of other pieces of legislation. I will not list them all, but more than 40 items of legislation will be affected. I suggest that the Minister, Deputy Howlin, amend the legislation in consultation with the Minister for Justice and Equality and that it be done as part of the Bill and not as a separate Bill. That would give the public confidence that the Garda is subject to the legislation under discussion and not that there will be further legislation somewhere along the line when the Commissioner and the Minister have consulted with each other and they feel it is the right thing to do at the time. I urge the Minister, Deputy Howlin, to deal with the amendment because what is proposed in section 19 goes to the heart of what has happened in recent weeks and months.

There has been much debate about the Garda Síochána and whistleblowers in the Chamber in the past year, not just at the Committee of Public Accounts. Several Members have raised the issue. I would be happy if we could deal with the entire issue in this Bill rather than waiting for the Department of Justice and Equality to introduce separate legislation. The Bill outlines that the Minister for Justice and Equality, after consultation with the Garda Commissioner, the Garda Ombudsman Commission, the Garda Inspectorate and the Government, will make regulations on protected disclosure under the proposed legislation for the Department of Justice and Equality. The provision must be amended in order that representatives of the Garda Representative Association, the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors, and other such bodies - for example, a consumer group to represent the public interest - can be consulted as part of the process. Once again, the Commissioner and the Minister are to make the decision and approve the regulations.

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