Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The Taoiseach said a substantive response is usually given to any correspondence his Department receives within an appropriate time. I have a specific question about a piece of correspondence dealing with a serious matter. It relates to a whistleblower whose story and the issue he brought to public attention featured in a "Prime Time Investigates" programme in 2015. It involved a company called Eurosurgical which was subsequently wound up with big tax liabilities. The company was exposed as having given gifts to procurement managers in 13 different hospitals to manipulate the tendering process and to get contracts to sell surgical equipment to those hospitals. It was very serious stuff. It was exposed and brought to public attention by a whistleblower who formerly worked for that company.

That whistleblower has requested some assistance from the Minister for Health. A journalist who helped break the story wrote to the Taoiseach on 31 October last to point out that the whistleblower has been blackballed ever since then. He cannot get a job anywhere in the private health sector because he blew the whistle. The whistleblower legislation does not apply retrospectively and it was passed after he had blown the whistle and done the State a service on a very serious matter. The State has offered the guy nothing and he cannot get a job. A letter was sent to the Taoiseach's Department and to the Minister for Health asking that they give this whistleblower some support and assistance. He has even spoken about going into the witness protection programme because of a fear of intimidation and retaliation. I ask the Taoiseach to look into this correspondence and to have the decency to respond in a serious manner to a whistleblower who has done the State a service.

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