Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the long-awaited Government action in eventually bringing forward this legislation. I note it was promised in the programme for Government in 2011 and, when published last summer, was to be enacted by the autumn. However, I submit there is much work to be done on it before it can provide a robust and comprehensive form of protection for whistleblowers, one that will inspire sufficient confidence in the system to encourage more to come forward.

I echo the call of the Irish Human Rights Commission for simplification of the Bill and the requirements placed on a whistleblower. I share its concern about the different standards of belief and different procedures required to be followed on the part of a whistleblower, depending on whether he or she is reporting the information to his or her employer, a designated agency, a Minister or the public. This may not meet the stated policy aim, to provide a single and pan-sectoral simple form of statutory protection for all whistleblowers.

The Minister has made much of the fact that section 14 protects whistleblowers by providing for civil immunity from actions for damages and a qualified privilege defence under defamation law. However, it is likely that there is already this protection under section 18 of the Defamation Act 2009 which provides that the defence of qualified privilege applies so long as the whistleblower has a duty or interest in providing this information for a person who has a duty or interest in receiving it.

We are all very well aware of the story of the story of John Wilson and Maurice McCabe, the two whistleblowers who exposed the penalty points malpractice. Given that we are discussing whistleblowers and improving matters, I ask that Maurice McCabe immediately be given independent access to the PULSE system. Maurice McCabe and John Wilson have put so much on the line. It is almost two years since they first went to the confidential recipient. The manner in which this Government has dealt with this is frightening and puts a question mark over the credibility of this Labour-Fine Gael Government. The competence and credibility of the Minister and the Garda Commissioner are in question.

When the same Minister spoke on "Prime Time" about my incident, not one Member of the Government had a word of criticism about what he did. I heard the Minister being very economical with the truth last week on RTE saying the Standards in Public Office Commission, SIPO had cleared him of all wrongdoing. That is not true. SIPO said it did not have the remit to deal with my complaint. SIPO is toothless and lacks the appetite to challenge the Minister. Is there any point in having SIPO if this is how it carries on?

Whistleblowers are rare for many reasons, and will become rarer, given how this State treats them. A while back we were given a transcript of a conversation two years ago between Maurice McCabe and the confidential recipient. It is frightening. It includes the following: "I'll tell you something Maurice, and this is just personal advice to you, if Shatter thinks you're screwing him, you're finished." Here is another line: "If Shatter thinks, here's this guy again trying another route trying to put pressure, he'll go after you." Our Minister for Justice and Equality will "go after you". What is going on?

This Minister has referred the matter to the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission, GSOC, in a limited form under section 102. He still refuses to apply section 106, which would investigate practices, policies and procedures of how the Garda Síochána operates. He can pass a new whistleblower Bill but it is pointless unless he applies it. Building regulations in this country are powerful. The reason so many buildings were built wrong is not because we did not have building regulations but because we did not apply them and supervise building, and the State did not spend money inspecting them. It was not that the regulations were not there.

The same applies to the whistleblowers. The Government can introduce all the laws it likes about whistleblowers, but if the Minister for Justice and Equality is going to spend two years diminishing and dismissing complaints and allegations made by whistleblowers, what will come of the new Bill? What will it be to us? The Minister was in here this morning and I tried to raise several points, but time was scarce. However, I told the Minister if this were Britain, he would not be in office. He would have been long gone. If this were Britain, the Garda Commissioner would not be in office. He would be long gone. The Minister, having presided over the penalty points fiasco for the best part of two years, has proven that he is unfit for office.

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