Luke Flanagan (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Is it a hangover from British rule in this country that one is not a whistleblower but a snitch? That is how one is classified if one blows the whistle. That is how this State has classified Maurice McCabe and John Wilson. The clinician who blew the whistle on the One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest standard of care in the psychiatric institution in Galway is classified as a snitch. These people should be classified as heroes.

There might have been a reason for classifying people as snitches under British rule because the view was that one should not tell the authorities certain things when we were trying to run them out of the country. In this case, however, it is our country. We are running it and if someone comes with vital information he or she should not be classified as a snitch. When meeting the confidential recipient, who has been fired for doing his job - contrary to what Deputy Martin said this morning, he did do his job – one should not be told, “I’ll tell you something Maurice, and this is just personal advice, if Shatter thinks you’re screwing him you’re finished.” If one saw that in a film by Quentin Tarantino one would say it was a well-written script but fell down in one respect, that it was kind of unrealistic, a bit over the top but this happened.

I spoke to John Wilson this morning. I talk to him regularly. I do not speak to him on my iPhone and, on his advice, he does not speak to me on his mobile phone. On his advice, we go to landlines and change them regularly. I am talking about the whistleblower. This is the man who had a rat tied to his door for doing the right thing. Tittle-tattle and tales are told about him behind his back within the Garda Síochána for standing up for what is right and the law. His reward is to be pulverised and attacked by the State. A true reward for people like John Wilson and Maurice McCabe is that, instead of John Wilson having to run for fear of his life out of the Garda Síochána, he should have been promoted through the ranks of the Garda Síochána because he has conclusively proved that he is in this for one reason only, justice. He has been vetted by the highest authority, his conscience, and has done the right thing. Instead, he has had to leave the job he loved. He has to live on far less money. His quality of life has gone down. His reward for doing the right thing is that the whistle has been shoved down his throat and if it does not choke him on the way down it will poison him when it gets to his stomach. What is happening to this man is sick and twisted. It is wrong. The Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Shatter, has said that one of his jobs is to build confidence in the Garda Síochána. Confidence has never been lower. The Minister told the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions yesterday that he did not think it was a problem. He needs to go out and talk to the general public. As John Wilson said this morning, where can the gardaí go if they have a problem? If a particular garda spots a problem, for example, a murder not properly investigated, of which we have plenty of examples, or rapes not properly investigated, where does he or she go? They can go nowhere because the man they did go to was fired for doing his job.

Oliver Connolly was in a sense a glorified postman. His job was to take the documentation and pass it on. He was so concerned about it that he did not go to the Garda Commissioner, he went directly to the Minister. His reward is that he is out of a job today when the Minister should be out of a job. This does not happen only within the Garda Síochána, it happens in all walks of Irish life. If a county councillor tries to do the right thing by reporting pollution or spot that money is being embezzled or wasted, what happens? Is one rewarded? No. One is punished. On many occasions when I reported pollution or other things going on, a couple of councillors came to me out of fatherly concern saying that if I kept on saying the council was causing pollution I would get nothing done. When I said it is polluting they said, “Oh we know that but if you keep saying this they will get back at you.” It got back at us two years ago by closing our swimming pool for the month of June, for the first time since 1945. That was the reward. I know the council would have closed it completely but that it would not have been able to take the backlash. That is the reward.

We hear apologies in this Chamber for what was done to people in the Magdalen laundries and various institutions.

The reality is that if someone working there today blew the whistle on it, he or she would be the one that would be punished. One might say, "No, that would not happen. What happened in the Magdalen laundries was too extreme. We would certainly listen to these people", but in the past week a whistleblower, Joe, who is proud to put his name in the public domain, although he was worried originally, told us - I stated it yesterday in the Dáil - that 31 patients with mental health issues have only three showers to use. When he put that information in the public domain he was immediately contacted by the Health Service Executive, which threatened him with disciplinary action. As far as I am concerned, if one is a clinician in the health service and one has any mass on the Hippocratic oath on what is right, one should come out and tell people what is going on. These people who are doing this are being threatened with being fired, but they still do it. Sadly, the message from this Government is: shut up, keep quiet, know your place.

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