James Bannon (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister, Deputy Brendan Howlin, to the House and compliment him on the fine job of work he is doing in his portfolio.

The purpose of the Bill is to put in place a whistleblowers Act. This is an important Bill and I am delighted to see it before the House. It will provide for further protection of workers who make disclosures of certain information in the public interest and will apply to both the public and private sectors.

This Bill sends a message of support to potential whistleblowers to encourage their reporting of wrongdoing. The legislation is intended to provide a robust statutory framework allowing workers to raise concerns regarding potential wrongdoing in their places of work, safe in the knowledge that they can avail of significant employment and other protections if they are penalised by their employers or suffer any detriment for doing so.

The 2011 programme for Government stated that we will put in place a whistleblowers Act to protect those who expose maladministration by Ministers or others, and restore freedom of information; we are delivering on that promise. However, I am concerned that some claim no real regulatory impact assessment has been carried out in terms of assessing fully the potential impact and effects of this legislation in sensitive situations such as personality clashes between persons in the workplace.

Concerns have also been raised about the impact on Ireland's open economy and our dependence on foreign direct investment. It is important to get the legislation right if we are to protect businesses and companies, and this country's reputation as a prime location to do business. I understand that special rules will be required for disclosure of commercial information where a contract entered into between employer and worker provides for confidentiality. Such provisions will take precedence over any right to disclose.

The protections contained in this Bill are designed to encourage whistleblowers to come forward and to prompt higher standards. It is horrifying to think that people who make disclosures about wrongdoing in the workplace might be penalised by their employers. A number of bodies have called for publicity campaigns to ensure workers are made aware of and understand the protections on offer. It is critical to the effective operation of the legislation that people be aware that it is safe for them to step forward and say there is something wrong. We need to rid ourselves of hostile attitudes towards whistleblowers, whereby informing is seen as having traitorous qualities. Examples of the types of wrongdoing that may be reported include dangers in the workplace, misselling or price fixing, medical negligence, neglect of people in care and supplying food unfit for consumption. The old approach of offering varied levels of protection based on a person's employment or industry sector leads to uncertainty as to who can make a protected disclosure. This lack of certainty surrounding general protection has stopped some potential whistleblowers from coming forward. The Bill offers the same protection to all whistleblowers regardless of their backgrounds. This will greatly help the whistleblowing process by making it easier to understand how the law can protect those who make disclosures. It is also important that the legislation balances worker protection with employer protection. This must remain a truthful and fair process and the law must not favour one side over the other.

The Nyberg report on the banking crisis in Ireland raised the issue of whistleblowing. The report stated that the limited numbers of warning voices were largely ignored. Attempts by banking insiders to send cautionary signals to market participants about escalating property values were dismissed as ill-informed and wrong and there may have been a strong belief in Ireland that non-team-players, fractious observers and whistleblowers could be informally, and sometimes publicly, sanctioned or ignored, regardless of the quality of their analysis or their position in their respective organisations. I regard those who warned of the financial doom coming our way as heroes. These people knew that their reputations and even their jobs were being put on the line by doing the right thing. We must now do the right thing in order to help brave people like them to stand up and say something when they witness wrongdoing in the workplace.

I have some slight concerns about the Bill, however. The proposed protections do not go far enough and are not equivalent to those on offer in other jurisdictions. For example, the UK and many other countries provide for interim relief whereby individuals can apply to be reinstated to their jobs if dismissed, or kept on until their cases are finally determined. Without such reliefs, whistleblowers risk financial ruin while they wait for their cases to be finally resolved.

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