Clare Daly (Dublin North, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

The other Deputies have hit the nail on the head regarding this legislation. We have an attempt to put some protection on paper, with which most right-thinking citizens would agree. However we must ask ourselves how effective that will be when we have a problem with the culture in our society and a tone set by those on the top. It is interesting to look at previous Dáil debates about other whistleblowing protections that have been there, for example the reports on the discussions after the Morris tribunal. At that time we were promised gold-plated systems of accountability and protection and a means of breaking down the blue wall of silence in this instance regarding the Garda Síochána. The promised protections never happened and we need to critically examine this.

It is very difficult for somebody to report wrongdoing. The position of whistleblower is an incredibly vulnerable one, not least because of the cultural attitude towards grasses. Nobody wants to be a rat or report something they should not. It is ingrained in us from an early age. Protection already exists in law. It is a criminal offence to retaliate against whistleblowers under section 21 of the Criminal Justice Act. However there is no protection in reality. It might be there on paper but not on the ground. We need to examine this. For example, a constituent of mine who did the accounts for a voluntary housing body in this State took seriously his responsibility to report wrongdoing in terms of tax returns and signatures being forged on cheques. That man, with a young family, is out of a job while that voluntary housing body continues to receive funding from the State.

There is a lot of talk in this Bill about protections for workers from unfair dismissal and so on but constructive dismissal needs to be examined. In many organisations a whistleblower's stay becomes untenable. It is untenable if those against whom a whistleblower is reporting stay in their positions. The legislation is incomplete because on the one hand we talk about protecting whistleblowers, which is good, but one of the best ways to protect them is to increase the penalties on those who have done them wrong. That is not examined seriously enough.

Mark Harrold, who blew the whistle on the Leas Cross scandal, originally reporting the treatment of a patient who had died in that nursing home. He tried to deal with it internally. He went to the Minister for Health of the day. Eventually the case was investigated but this man had to leave. He fought a case which cost him €75,000 in the Employment Appeals Tribunal and never got justice although he highlighted that wrong very effectively. We could spend much time reiterating many examples in different areas.

Why should we believe this Bill will change anything when we see what happened to the two most prominent whistleblowers who have operated in this State over the past period, the two gardaí at the centre of the penalty points controversy? One of them is out of a job. He did not want to be out of a job. He is a young man with 30 years' service in a force that he loved but he could not continue to operate in it. The other man, as Deputy Wallace said, is being denied the ability to do his job properly because he is denied the right to access PULSE, as if he is some form of contaminant when he should be rewarded for the courageous stand he made. The confidential recipient system, which we were told was going to deal with everything after the Morris tribunal, does not work.

We had the ridiculous spectacle this morning of the Minister for Justice and Equality admitting this. He is the man who denied this for so long, but now when it is standing up in neon lights, he acknowledges it, as if it is something he himself has discovered. He is the same man who bragged about giving the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission, GSOC, access to the PULSE records this morning and that he is going to deal with that now. Six months ago, when the GSOC asked for access, he refused to include that in the protocols. There are huge difficulties here with this type of mentality and operation.

Deputy Wallace dealt with the issue of when the whistleblower first went to the confidential recipient and the response he got. We know the confidential recipient went to the Minister, Deputy Shatter, in May 2014 and reported to the Garda whistleblower that he got no feedback from the Minister. The confidential recipient said he had discussed the case. He said: "I have done my best for you Maurice; I haven't heard anything back." After a certain period of time he stopped contacting the Minister in that regard. It was only in desperation, after going through every official channel that the garda came to Members of the Oireachtas, as he is lawfully entitled to do. He came to us with the information, which we got onto the Dáil record and then "Prime Time" ran with the story.

Let us look at what happened the day after "Prime Time" was broadcast. A confidential Garda circular, signed by the Assistant Commissioner, was sent out to all of the Garda stations around the country, effectively warning gardaí. It stated: "In order to protect the reputation of An Garda Síochána, individual inquiries conducted by Garda personnel on PULSE will be audited." Then, underlined on the back it stated: "Inappropriate release of data in the possession of An Garda Síochána to external agencies is prohibited. Release of this information to any source external to An Garda Síochána will be fully investigated and processed and the criminal aspects of inappropriate disclosure will be fully investigated." This was a warning to these men to back off and shut up.

After the internal report came out, the Minister for Justice and Equality made a public press statement which did disclose wrongdoing, but minimised it. He was talking about whistleblowers and how, while they could not have everything right, the substance should be right. He said: "However, even allowing that latitude in this case, it is a matter of concern that the allegations made by this Garda whistleblower were in many instances seriously inaccurate and without any foundation in fact, or else involved an incomplete understanding of the facts." He repeated that in this House on 21 May, in response to the allegations in regard to his disclosure on "Prime Time" about Deputy Wallace, when he talked about us denigrating An Garda Síochána, undermining public confidence, damaging their reputation and saying that we rejected the conclusions contained in the report which, to any fair-minded individual, revealed that some of the most serious allegations made by the whistleblower had no basis in reality.

The Minister for Justice and Equality has repeated in this House, at every turn, that the whistleblower's evidence did not stack up. When we have the man at the top setting that tone, with the Commissioner - whom he appointed and the remit of whose office was extended beyond what any other Commissioner got before, at the behest of this Minister - in league together and unaccountable to this House in any real sense, how can we have a system where people inside An Garda Síochána can speak up? I am sorry to say that nothing in the proposed Bill will protect future whistleblowers from that scenario.

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