Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputies for raising this issue and for their contribution to the Second Stage debate on the Protected Disclosures (Amendment) Bill yesterday in the House. I look forward to working with them in a spirit of co-operation, as I said yesterday, on the passage of this Bill over the months ahead. Many of the issues they raised this morning are the very issues we need to tease out in considerable detail on Committee and Report Stages. We in this House can all agree on the importance of protecting whistleblowers. We all recognise fully the vital role they play in a democratic society. We are all aware of individual cases in recent years where people who have had the courage to speak up have unfortunately paid a personal price.

While the existing Act served, and continues to serve, a purpose, it is an Act of its time. It is now eight years old and we have to accept that we have learned a considerable amount from our experience of the operation of the Act over the last eight years. I reassure the Deputies that not only are we using this Bill to transpose the EU directive but that we are also seeking to go further. We are taking the opportunity presented by this Bill to improve and modernise our regime for protected disclosures and to centrally improve protections for whistleblowers.

The Bill goes much further than our existing legislation. For example, it significantly widens the range of persons entitled to protection for speaking up to include volunteers, shareholders, board members and job applicants. It will require many employers to establish formal channels and procedures for their workers to report concerns about wrongdoing. It requires recipients of disclosures to take highly specific steps within clear timelines to follow up on the reports they receive. Those steps are not laid out in the current Act. When enacted, the new Bill will place clear obligations on those who are receiving these protected disclosures as to the steps they must take and when those steps must be taken. Fundamentally, the Bill provides for the reversal of the burden of proof. Employers will have to prove that the alleged act of penalisation was not undertaken because the worker made a protected disclosure. That is a very significant shift in position that I believe will prove to be incredibly helpful over the period ahead. Offences relating to contraventions of the Act are also set out.

As I said, we are using this Bill to address issues that arose in the context of the operation of the existing Act. The Bill provides for the establishment of a protected disclosures commissioner, who will be the Ombudsman. The commissioner's officer will have three key roles, one of which will be to assist persons in making an external report to a prescribed person by directing them to the most appropriate prescribed person. With over 100 regulatory bodies currently designated as prescribed persons, it is not always clear to persons reporting which prescribed person they should report to. It will also receive all reports made to Ministers and transmit them to the most appropriate authority for assessment and follow-up. It will also act as a prescribed person of last resort and directly follow up on any reports where there is no prescribed person or other suitable authority competent to follow up on the matter reported.

I will now deal with two of the issues the Deputies have just raised. I read the report from the Oireachtas joint committee and we will have to carefully consider and tease out the issue of retrospective application. I am engaging with the Attorney General. I want to go as far as I possibly can to ensure the protections we are providing for in the new Bill will apply to those already in the system who have made protected disclosures. However, I need to tease that issue out on the basis of legal advice. I look forward to discussing that issue in detail. We will ensure that there is follow-through with regard to protected disclosures that are made, that there will be an end point, and that people will know where they stand at the end of the process.

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