Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As I said earlier in relation to my Department, there are no protected disclosures on hand at present. With regard to GSOC, I do not have that information to hand but I will inform GSOC that Deputy Burton has raised these questions here and I will ask GSOC to provide a reply to her.

Deputy McDonald raises some issues about particular protected disclosures. I am conscious that protected disclosures are protected and there are limitations on what can be said about them. Where litigation is under way it further complicates matters. I will ask the Minister of State, Deputy Kehoe, to correspond with the Deputy to give her an update and some answers to her particular questions.

I was asked if there has been a review of the Act. The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform published a statutory review of the Protected Disclosures Act 2014 in July 2018. That followed on from a public consultation. This solicited 25 submissions from a variety of public bodies, interest groups and members of the public. The review considered international developments, including comparative analysis, with legislation in other countries. It also detailed some early results of the implementation of the Act across 212 public sector bodies.

A total of 370 protected disclosures were received by the end of 2016. The review shows the Act is viewed as setting a positive example internationally and has had a broadly positive outcome. It highlights some implementation issues, which are being considered by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. These include: providing absolute confidentiality to disclosers while balancing fair procedures for others concerned, including those against whom allegations have been made; the interaction of the Act with the GDPR legislation and other employment policies; and disclosures made through multiple channels and anonymous disclosures.

Following the publication of the review, the Government decided to set up an interdepartmental committee to capture views regarding the operation of the Protected Disclosures Act. The committee was composed of officials with responsibility for the handling of protected disclosures. Representatives were drawn from all Departments and key stakeholders, including local authorities, the HSE and An Garda Síochána. Six meetings of the committee were held between October 2018 and March 2019. Topics considered by the committee included confidentially and record-keeping, data protection and freedom of information and the operation of disclosure channels following upon protected disclosure, interactions with other workplace policies and reporting obligations. Arising from these discussions, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform will, in the coming months, issue a number of guidance notes, to assist public bodies in dealing with certain common issues that have arisen in dealing with protected disclosures. Priority will be given to guidance dealing with disclosures concerning misconduct by a head of an organisation, balancing the obligation of confidentiality with effective follow-up of a disclosure and reporting obligations under the Act. In addition, and as highlighted in the statutory review, there is a need to update the list of competent authorities designated to receive protected disclosures under section 7 of the 2014 Act, and work on a drafting order is currently being advanced.

I would add that European legislation is now being developed on protected disclosures and we are very much involved in that and are monitoring it closely. We may need to make amendments to our domestic legislation depending on how that EU legislation lands and how it might require us to change ours.

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