Patricia Ryan (Kildare South, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this Bill, the purpose of which is to transpose an EU directive from 2019 relating to the protection of persons who report breaches of EU law. The directive provides for a set of minimum standards for the protection of whistleblowers across the European Union. It was supposed to be transposed by December 2021. Given that this time has passed, the State could potentially incur a fine. This is not the first time I have discussed potential fines because of the Government's failure to introduce EU law. We are still waiting on microgeneration to ease the burden on those who can afford renewable energy technology. There are a number of weaknesses in the current legislation which this legislation should address. However, there are concerns that the transposition could be used as an opportunity to weaken existing protections.

My colleagues, na Teachtaí Mairéad Farrell and Buckley, introduced their own Protected Disclosures (Amendment) Bill last year to address these concerns. That Bill was designed to help inform the finance committee's pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill introduced by the Minister, Deputy Michael McGrath. The finance committee report was published in December and was quite critical of the Government's Bill in certain respects. The report makes approximately 60 recommendations, including how the existing framework could be improved, and identifies potentially regressive revisions in the new Bill that should be removed. A number of the recommendations are directly reflected in the Sinn Féin Bill. The Minister has taken some of them on board and has amended this Bill accordingly but he has chosen to ignore others. We have submitted amendments to this Bill and I urge the Minister to consider them. We know the State has serious issues when it comes to accountability. That is especially true of State institutions. We saw that recently when Kildare County Council almost had to take the Department of Defence to court to get answers on dumping in the Curragh, dumping which was committed by the Department. When the council finally got the Department to mediation, in an effort to save public money on a court case, a curtain of secrecy was drawn down.

It appears that a non-disclosure agreement is in place. Prince Andrew would be very proud, I can tell you. Not even the elected members of Kildare County Council know if there are any consequences for the person who ordered the dumping or even if he or she was identified. This is shameful. The Government must learn from the experience of whistleblowers. They have been paid enough lip service and it is time now to take action.

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