Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for his response and his honesty. He is right; we can all work together on this. This is the most important thing about it. I am passionate about workers' rights, health and safety, protected disclosures and what has happened in the last year and a half.

We are all very lucky to be elected here. The Minister of State knows as well as I do that when you get a protected disclosure you are duty-bound to report it. We put faith in those organisations to which they are reported, but the results that came back were not what they should have been. We have to be very conscious of the family in the hospital today and the other injured individual and his family, as well as the 4,500 workers and their families.

It is a major concern that when we try so hard to do the right thing, and I have said it so many times here, that sometimes when you try to help people and tell the truth you get punished for it. Those whistleblowers were brave enough and they have suffered; I tell the Minister of State that straight out. This is what made me really aggrieved. I am still sick to my stomach when I am talking to the Minister of State here. We know accidents happen, but if things had happened a lot sooner, as I listed them out and many of which have been documented in the public domain, in the press and in the media, I should not be here today speaking about this. I would love to work with the Minister of State. I will give him the full protected disclosure again. I will give him everything I have on file if he is willing to look at it because I do think there has been a possible miscarriage of justice here between employees, employers, those who have been affected in the past who have not been dealt with and those who are suffering right now.

Again, my heart goes out to that young family today. However, we should not be discussing this in this Chamber. This is why we have legislation. We are supposed to have regulatory measures in place and I am bewildered that I had to come into this Chamber to raise this as a Topical Issue at such as sensitive time for families. I am also duty-bound as a public representative to do my job, which I will do to the best of my ability, and I will work with the Minister of State on it.

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