Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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I am sure the Leas-Cheann Comhairle will not mind if I take this opportunity to wish Katie Taylor, our undisputed world champion, all the very best as she steps into the ring in Madison Square Garden tonight. We are right there in heart and spirit with her. Go n-éirí léi.

Tá sé 20 mí anois tar éis don Rialtas maoiniú éigeandála a gheallúint don chéad uair chun cúram riachtanach a chur ar fáil do leanaí le riachtanais speisialta, ach go fóill níl an t-airgead ar fáil. Tá sé seo scannalach. I have received confirmation that vital funding through the children's disability grant first announced by the Government 20 months ago has still not been released. It is even worse than that. I have a letter stating that despite funding for organisations having been publicly announced by the Minister, organisations have been asked to reapply for short-listing with no guarantee that funding will be provided for projects or be granted.

The grant was announced in 2023 as an emergency fund to fill a gaping hole left by the HSE which was not able to provide vital therapies for children. That was 20 months ago. Parents and children with special needs thought the Government had finally heard their cries for help, but the months went on and nothing happened. No funding was released. Just two days before the local elections in June 2024, then Ministers, Senator Anne Rabbitte and Deputy Charlie McConalogue, held a press event in Donegal re-announcing the funding. Local lad Jack Donaghy, who has cerebral palsy, and his mother, Denise McGahern, were included in the photo op. They were understandably delighted the funding was finally being provided for Jack and many others.

Fast forward nine months to March 2025, there was still no sign of the money being released. Denise went public to express the disgust and anger she felt at her son being as an election prop for a Government photo op. In March, the Tánaiste apologised for the situation going on for so long and said it would not defend something that was indefensible. In regard to the funding, he said that he was going to make sure it is released and provided.

Five days after the exchange between me and the Tánaiste in the Dáil, the Government again announced that funding would be released, yet despite his promises here we are. Three months on no funding has been released or provided. Therapies are still not available. The 54 organisations which thought they successfully applied for the grant have not received a single red cent. Not only that, it gets worse. Some of the organisations concerned understood they would get millions of euro over a three-year period. Funding was announced by the Minister. However, organisations have been told they have to reapply for short-listing and the funding is no longer multi-annual but instead needs to be spent by the end of the year. Organisations only have until the end of the year to spend money that they have not been given.

I have a letter from one of the organisations, which publicly announced what it would receive and has now been told to reapply, stating that there is no guarantee of funding, there is less money than the organisation thought and it all has to be spent this year. The Tánaiste told me in March that he would resolve the issue and make sure the money would flow. The Government has announced this funding on three separate occasions, and each time its promise has disappeared without a trace. There is no follow-through, delivery or funding.

This is about kids with special needs. It is about kids like Jack, who has cerebral palsy.

It is about kids who are in braces, kids who are trying to speak, kids who are PEG-fed and kids who want to walk who are suffering as a result of this. These children and their parents are left crying out for help they have been promised and promised again. It is cruel what the Tánaiste's Government is doing to them. There is no other word for it.

I am going to ask the Tánaiste a couple of questions. When is the money going to be released? When will the funding be put in place so the therapies can be delivered to these children who desperately require them? Can he explain to me why, when two Ministers from the previous Government's Cabinet went to Donegal and announced specific multi-annual money for these projects, the HSE is now telling them there is no guarantee they will even get funding and that there is no multi-annual funding available any more? What is a Government promise worth any more, especially to these children and their families? These are the questions they are asking me today.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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First, I join the Leas-Cheann Comhairle in remarking on the fact tomorrow marks the 30th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This was one of the most horrific atrocities ever to take place on the European Continent and an atrocity that resulted in the massacre of more than 8,000 men and boys. It is our duty as a country, a Parliament and an international community to remember the brutality and devastation that occurred. I know we all join the community today.

Deputy Doherty mentioned Katie Taylor from Bray. I join him in wishing her all the best.

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. He was right when he raised it in March. I did take action, as did the Government. I think the Deputy raised it on a Thursday during Leaders' Questions and on the Monday, from my memory, we had a meeting of the Cabinet committee on disability and agreed to sanction a fund of €8 million - again from memory - into what was called the children's disability services grant fund. That decision was taken by the Government on foot of the engagement the Deputy and I had here. I have been asking about this pretty regularly because these are important projects and, indeed, I had an opportunity to speak to the head of the HSE, Bernard Gloster, about it only this week as part our ongoing regular engagement.

In relation specifically to the Donegal group, I understood they are in very regular contact. I think there has even been contact this week between them and the HSE. I am also told they have been assured their costs will be funded. From a Government point of view, we have allocated the €8 million. I take the point about the delay and I apologised for it, but we have now sanctioned the funding. I can fully understand that there might be final compliance checks or governance checks. I do not say this rudely to the groups, but it is the first time some of them have ever received public funding or the likes. I take the point that the HSE has to do that, but we want to see the money flow. Because of the importance of the issue, while I accept there are more projects than those in Donegal, I will ask that we have a meeting of Donegal Oireachtas Members. I will ask for that to be arranged with the relevant Minister or the HSE next week to try to bring a finality to this situation. Our commitment on this was solemn. It was an €8 million fund.

More broadly, because I am conscious that people are watching this, therapy services for children is an area in which there needs to be huge progress and we are endeavouring to reform that system. That is why we have taken decisions only in recent weeks to establish a new national education therapy service led by my colleague the Minister, Deputy McEntee. We should be in a position to start recruiting for those posts in the coming weeks, I hope, starting with special schools and then rolling the project out more broadly after that to special classes and then mainstream schools. That is an important step and we have seen when it comes to assessments of need this year that there has, thankfully, been a very large increase in the number of children now getting them, although there is much more work to do on that.

On foot of Deputy Doherty raising this, and I can only imagine the genuine frustration of Denise and Jack and other Denises and Jacks, we will arrange for that meeting next week and I will keep in close contact with the Deputy. From the Government's point of view, I am clear, because I was in the room, that we have sanctioned the €8 million. We did that in March. I will ask for a specific meeting to take place with the Deputy and other Donegal Oireachtas Members next week.

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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The Tánaiste will forgive me for saying that is not good enough, because we have been here. He promised he would make sure it was being provided - not just sanctioned and released but provided. None of these groups have got it. The Tánaiste is absolutely right that they have been in contact this week. I have the letter here. Does he know what it says? The groups need to reapply for short-listing. The Tánaiste's Ministers turned up to Donegal and announced the project. One project got €3 million over a three-year period. It was well deserved for the massive work they are doing. The letter says the funding is not multi-annual and has to be spent in 2025. That commitment is gone. The letter also said funding for the grant scheme is less than originally expected. That is why people have to apply.

It is not just the groups in Donegal. I am a Donegal Deputy and there are four groups in Donegal but there are 54 groups across the State. There are children whose names I do not know who are equally entitled as Jack. It is disgraceful. This is 20 months on and this is emergency funding. Why? Because the HSE is not able to provide the therapies and supports for these families and their kids. I do not know what we have to do to get this money released, but when a government stands up, right or wrong, and promises disability services are getting X amount of money, then it needs to deliver on it. This letter tears up that commitment. The Tánaiste needs to do more than respond to me three months ago and then nothing happens. The communication is worse. Parents are seething at what is happening. It is just not good enough. I am asking the Tánaiste for a commitment he gave here in the Dáil. He said every eligible project, 54 of them, should get the €8 million funding. I am asking him to ensure every single project, including the four announced in Donegal and the levels of funding announced for them, will get the funding they need because these are therapies and support the children and their families so desperately need, 20 months after this was first announced.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I am very clear, not just from my perspective but from that of the entire Government, that on 25 March of this year, the Department of Children, Disability and Equality secured sanction for the €8 million grant fund. There is a budget of €3.2 billion for disability services, as the Deputy knows, and €8 million of a grant fund was sanctioned for the Department of Children, Disability and Equality on 25 March. From the Government's point of view, once it was sanctioned, we expected it to be drawn down and spent. In light of what Deputy Doherty has brought to my attention, I will of course follow this up again. I had conversations on it this week, coincidentally, where I was told there were some final compliance and governance issue with some projects. Again, I do not say that as a slur but just before the final governance issues in terms of the drawdown of public money. That is what I was told was the situation this week.

It would be useful, if we take the Donegal projects as an example, to convene a meeting next week of Oireachtas Members with the relevant HSE and departmental officials. I undertake to get that in place. I will also talk to the Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, and the Minister, Deputy Foley, about this matter today. From the Government's perspective, the funding has been allocated and now needs to be spent quickly for the benefit of these children.

Ciarán Ahern (Dublin South West, Labour)
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Yesterday, Uisce Éireann announced that areas in 12 counties, from Donegal to Wexford, are officially suffering a water drought. This is at a time when we have seen tragic flash floods in Texas, wildfires outside Marseilles and an extended heatwave in many countries across Europe that is about to hit Ireland. Before I came in here, I got an alert on my phone from Met Éireann that it has issued a hot weather warning. Do not get me wrong, the bit of sun is great, but we need to recognise that this is not normal for Ireland and that our current drought is a result of a drier-than-normal autumn, winter and spring. This is climate change in action. Paradoxically, we have just had a wetter-than-normal June but, because of our creaking water infrastructure, almost 40% of our treated water is lost. There are more leaks in our pipes than are coming out of Cabinet meetings. The state of our water infrastructure is holding up the development of much-needed housing, and new housing is plugging into crumbling old pipes and putting unsustainable pressure on the whole system. We are facing water restrictions ultimately. Just ask the residents of Dargle Wood, Knocklyon, in my constituency of Dublin South-West about our water infrastructure. They have faced over 12 water outages this year alone.

The broader picture is our climate preparedness and climate action, or the lack thereof. Ever since the programme for Government was published, the Labour Party has had serious concerns about this Government’s commitment to addressing the climate crisis. Last week, in the climate committee, the Minister, Deputy O’Brien, basically waved the white flag in saying the best we can hope for now is that we might get about halfway to meeting our 2030 emissions reduction targets. People want to take climate action, but we know from a recent survey carried out by the climate Department that people’s overriding feeling when it comes to this Government and climate action is frustration. People feel hamstrung by this Government’s inaction and delay in providing even the most basic measures to allow them to engage in climate action. People want to retrofit their homes, but the system of grants restricts this to well-off households with significant savings. We in the Labour Party want to see a street-by-street retrofitting scheme backed by green loans. People want to switch to public transport but the services are not there or are already at capacity.

We need more rail services and, in the short term, projects like BusConnects need to be prioritised. How in God's name has it taken eight years and counting to get a few new bus lanes put in? In the absence of public transport, people feel they cannot make the switch from petrol or diesel to EVs because our charging infrastructure is so lacking. Farmers are getting mixed messages and, meanwhile, there are insufficient compensation schemes to enable the necessary changes to our agricultural policy and ensure a just transition.

Earlier this week, the European Commission published its latest environmental implementation review of Ireland, identifying a €3.3 billion investment gap. Will the Government commit to providing the investment required to fill that gap in order to avoid climate disaster, improve our infrastructure, which will help us on climate, and support people to make the climate-positive changes they want to make in their lives?

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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It is welcome to have a question on climate as I am not sure we, as a Dáil, are having the level of focus and discussion needed on this issue. The climate emergency has not gone away; far from it. We need to look at how we can accelerate the pace of change that needs to take place. We need a conversation about how we bring people with us, on which the Deputy had some good ideas. I, too, know people who would like to retrofit their home or switch to an electric vehicle but cost is still a barrier. We, as a Government, must reflect on that.

The short answer to the Deputy's question is "Yes". He will begin to see real and meaningful intent when we publish our national development plan, which I hope will be at the end of this month. It will show a commitment in areas like investing in water infrastructure, supporting Irish Water, accelerating the delivery of renewable energy and investing more in transport, including public transport. The Cabinet committee on climate action, environment and energy met this week and had a good and detailed discussion on climate policy. The latest data from the Environmental Protection Agency, which made a presentation to the committee, shows that Ireland's emissions continue to fall for the third year in a row and are at their lowest level in three decades.

I say that not because we are where we need to be but because we do not want to inject a sense of fatalism into the debate, which the Deputy is not doing. We are able to make more progress as a country. Emissions decreased by 2% in 20024 and by 10.6% between 2021 and 2024. Ireland now has the lowest level of greenhouse gas emissions in 35 years. This is more significant when we consider that this period saw 1.5 million more people living in the country and over a million more homes. We are achieving reductions at a time when our economy is, thankfully, continuing to grow strongly.

However, the Deputy is entirely correct that we have a long way to go to get to our 2030 climate targets. Certainly, there is no white flag being raised by the Government. The next phase has to be about acceleration. It has to be about how we can do more and do it more quickly. That is why the Government has announced our intention to establish a new climate investment clearing house to try to accelerate progress on our energy transition. That is the big dial change. If we can get to that energy transition, we can stop using dirty fuels and start being able to produce clean renewable energy.

There are a number of commitments in the programme for Government on climate. They include strengthening governance structures around the climate action plan, achieving energy independence by harnessing renewable energy resources, ramping up home retrofits, improving grants, on which we have given a commitment, enabling communities to secure grid access for local renewable projects and supporting the just transition commission to ensure no community is left behind. One of the big decisions the previous Government made was the establishment of the Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund. We are putting billions of euro aside to be able to invest in that transition.

I have read the Commission's report on our implementation of EU environmental law. My honest evaluation is that it is a mixed bag. It points to some areas of progress over the past year, including in biodiversity, our clean air strategy, the publication of successive climate action plans and the binding legislation.

Ciarán Ahern (Dublin South West, Labour)
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I am glad to hear about the Government's focus on accelerating what we are doing. However, the fact remains that we are not meeting our climate targets. While there was a 6% reduction in emissions in 2023, there was only a 2% reduction in 2024. The EPA is saying we are going backwards. This is because we are seeing significantly slower progress than needed on many fronts, like onshore wind, offshore wind, electric vehicles, district heating and the use of biomethane, not to mention the impact of the new LNG fossil fuel terminals the Government is promoting and the data centres that are not required to use renewable energy.

We are told all the time that money is no object to our taking action on climate. Will the Government please pull out all the stops with the new national development plan? Will it invest in the infrastructure we need to mitigate the climate crisis, including our water pipe network, which is so bad it is not able to ensure people have water right after a month of abnormally heavy rain? I ask the Government, please, to invest in our future and to support legislation to establish a future generations commissioner, who will challenge the short-termism we have seen from too many Governments and embed future thinking across government.

Will the revised national development plan will be framed to ensure we meet our climate targets? Will the Tánaiste commit to addressing the environmental investment gap?

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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We are committed to providing the investment that is required. I am being very honest in saying I am not convinced currently of the need for more legislation in this area. There is a lot of legislation in place. It is an implementation issue now in terms of how quickly we can accelerate delivery.

Most sectors of our economy are seeing a decrease in emissions, including agriculture and transport. Our electricity is now cleaner than ever before. Last year marked the first year in which no peat was used for power generation, which was a symbolic end to a high-carbon era. It reflects the structural transformation under way in our energy network. Wind energy provided 48% of Ireland's power last February. In January, Ireland reached the important milestone of hitting 5 GW of installed onshore wind capacity. EV sales increased by 23% in April this year compared with the same month last year. Home retrofitting is scaling up. I agree with the Deputy that we need to go further but we are beginning to see the direction of travel. We must back that up with investment but also by making sure projects are delivered more quickly, particularly in the area of offshore renewable energy.

Séamus Healy (Tipperary South, Independent)
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The local training initiatives, LTIs, run by Tipperary Education and Training Board, ETB, at Spafield family resource centre in Cashel, Knockanrawley centre in Tipperary town, the Cahir Development Association facility in Cahir and the Littleton community centre, have been abolished. This has an impact on the most vulnerable people in our society. This is unconscionable and wholly unacceptable.

Tipperary Education and Training Board's funder, SOLAS, has left the board €1.5 million short of its required budget for Government-approved schemes, including expenditure on increased apprenticeship provision and the roll-out of new initiatives such as the national tertiary programme. There is also a failure to provide for the costs of the new apprenticeship centre in Carrick-on-Suir. Despite continued engagement with SOLAS, it has failed to provide the necessary and legitimate funding for the board.

LTIs have provided transformative support for countless vulnerable young people and adults. The progression of students through these programmes speaks volumes. Many of them have faced significant barriers, ranging from family disadvantage to low confidence and profound health struggles. They found a safe and nurturing environment where they could truly thrive. The abolition of the courses removes a lifeline and an irreplaceable service for individuals and families in these communities. The courses are also a lifeline for young and lone parents who are trying to break free from generational poverty and build better lives for themselves and their children. The courses offer more than education. They offer hope, routine, purpose and a pathway to employment and independence.

If these courses are taken away, we will not just lose a course; we will lose a network of connection and progress that helps to lift families out of poverty, reduce social isolation and promote inclusion and resilience in communities. The true measure of any society is how it deals with its most vulnerable individuals. I appeal to the Tánaiste to intervene directly with SOLAS to ensure these courses continue into the future, with effect from the start of the coming academic year in September.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. As a previous Minister with responsibility in this area, I know Tipperary ETB to be an excellent and well-run organisation. I am aware of some of the exciting projects in which it is involved, including at the old barracks in Clonmel and the plans for a FET college of the future. I know the ETB to be a well-run organisation and would take very seriously any feedback it has for the Government on any supports it requires. I am happy to have further engagement on this issue and to speak with the Minister, Deputy Lawless, to reflect the views raised by the Deputy and other Tipperary Deputies.

My understanding is that not only has SOLAS, the national agency, not reduced its funding to Tipperary ETB, but we, through SOLAS, have increased its funding. To be clear, the Deputy has not asserted to the contrary. We have provided a budget for Tipperary ETB this year of €35.5 million through SOLAS, which is an extra €1.1 million on what it received last year. We are very much investing in further education and training opportunities in Tipperary ETB.

My understanding, going somewhat from memory, is that local training initiatives are one mechanism through which people access training. They generally operate on an annual funding cycle and are always reviewed by all ETBs at the end of the cycle. They look at a range of factors, including demand, funding, local strategic priorities and the like. They then decide whether to offer those courses again.

I understand that Tipperary ETB has not formally approved or scheduled any LTIs to operate beyond the conclusion of this year's initiatives and, therefore, no learners are formally enrolled for September. I am also aware that Tipperary ETB has advised that it is considering alternative options to support those learners who typically would have been served by LTIs. It has requested the contact details of any current or prospective LTI learners and intends to engage with each of them on personalised guidance and to consider the various educational options that might be available to them. I know it remains committed to that.

I believe there are over 9,600 unique learners in Tipperary who were supported last year through post leaving certificate courses, PLCs, apprenticeships, traineeships, Youthreach and adult and community education programmes.

I am happy to have further engagement with the Minister, Deputy Lawless, and SOLAS on the matter. There is a number of different pathways to achieve those training objectives. When Tipperary ETB has gone through its process, it will be interesting to see if it identifies any gaps and if it does, how the Government responds. It might be that the ETB is able to meet the education and training needs through a variety of other means. I am happy to keep in touch with the Deputy on the issue. I am satisfied at the moment that Tipperary ETB is going through a process and I look forward to the outcome of it.

Séamus Healy (Tipperary South, Independent)
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I thank the Tánaiste for the reply. The local training initiative is a valuable service that has been in existence for more than 20 years. It provides a leaving certificate qualification over two academic years for students or trainees who are not suitable for mainstream education. It provides modules on subjects such as computers, communications, work experience and mathematics. The closure of the service and these courses affects 41 training places across the four sites. It also impacts six staff members who will lose their jobs. No alternative employment is being offered. They already find themselves disadvantaged because of the short-term contract nature of their employment. That means they have no redundancy entitlements and no contracts of indefinite duration.

The costs involved in this are minuscule in the overall context. We are talking here about less than €300,000 to provide a service that is absolutely essential to the most vulnerable in our society. I am advised there are no alternatives to this course. There is certainly no local alternative in these towns. Any alternatives that might be available are not available to the trainees involved. I again urge the Tánaiste to intervene directly with SOLAS to increase the funding to ensure these courses continue.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy. I know the seriousness with which he views this issue. He has said it is a "central issue" and that is obviously how he feels about it. It will be interesting to see whether, through the range of courses provided by Tipperary ETB and the pathways available, it believes it can meet the needs of learners through other mechanisms or whether it will require LTIs to continue in the new year. On foot of the Deputy raising the issue, and it being raised a few times in the Dáil this week, I will ask the Minister, Deputy Lawless, to engage with SOLAS and Tipperary ETB, as I know he will be eager to do anyway. We will see how the situation progresses. We are very committed to the work of the ETB in Tipperary. I thank the staff of the ETB for the work they do. It is an organisation I have come to know reasonably well. I am pleased that we have increased in funding in 2025 compared with 2024. I expect we will continue to increase its funding and will look to provide more educational opportunities to Tipperary. I will keep in touch with the Deputy on the matter.

Ken O'Flynn (Cork North-Central, Independent Ireland Party)
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Last week in the House, I raised with the Minister, Deputy Chambers, the urgent need to extend legal aid to whistleblowers who step forward not for personal gain, but to protect the public interest. In that exchange, the Minister expressed his willingness to meet me and the whistleblowers in question. I accepted the offer in writing but have received no reply as yet from the Minister. There is plenty of time for that.

We all recall the case of Garda Maurice McCabe, a man falsely accused of the most heinous of crimes by Tusla, a State agency charged with the protection of children. The scandal shook this country to its core. It showed we treat our whistleblowers disdainfully. It showed we are not protecting but persecuting them. Today I raise a case that is equally as difficult as that of Garda Maurice McCabe. It is every bit as alarming.

In 2019, a former Tusla employee made a protected disclosure. He reported serious governance problems. It resulted in relentless retaliation and attack. In 2021, Tusla sent him a formal letter questioning his capability to work with children. This triggered an unauthorised background check in what appears to have been an orchestrated campaign to discredit him professionally, financially, personally and psychologically. Afterwards, at a hearing of the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, Tusla made a commitment to launch a full inquiry. That was four years ago and to date, there have been no findings, no inquiries, no answers, no accountability and no justice.

This case is not unknown to the public. The current chairperson of Tusla, Mr. Pat Rabbitte, commented publicly on this in the Irish Examiner in 2019: "It is deeply concerning that a whistleblower has been left without any financial income." Two former Ministers for children, Katherine Zappone and Deputy Roderic O'Gorman, were also briefed. The office of the then Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, was so concerned that it offered the whistleblower free counselling after receiving a detailed account of what occurred.

The retaliations from Tusla continued and the attacks deepened. The information we have obtained shows there was a formal complaint to the Data Protection Commission that Tusla contacted the whistleblower's private counsellor and demanded access to confidential records. That is an extraordinary breach of personal privacy by a State agency.

Ms Kate Duggan, Tusla's current CEO, held a direct meeting with this individual. During that meeting, she was informed that Tusla had falsely accused him of being a danger to vulnerable children, an allegation made without foundation against a man whose only crime was to tell the truth. Again, there has been no inquiry and no justice.

This is not merely an administrative failing or systemic dysfunction. The State is failing whistleblowers. It is not protecting them but is destroying their lives.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for raising the matter, as I acknowledge he has on previous occasions, as he said. He raised it with my colleague, the Minister, Deputy Chambers, who has committed to engaging with him. I will welcome his views on the legislative basis we have in Ireland.

I am not familiar with the details and if the Deputy has details, he should furnish them to the relevant authorities. That would be useful. Ireland has comprehensive legislation to protect workers who raise concerns about wrongdoing in the workplace. We have been on quite a significant legislative journey to try to get it right. The Protected Disclosures Act was enacted in 2014. It was enhanced and amended during the previous Dáil through the Protected Disclosures (Amendment) Act 2022. A statutory review of the Protected Disclosures Act is built in. That is due to commence, I am told, in the near future. Under the law, it must be done by 2027. It must be done within five years. A public consultation will be held as part of that review. Those of us who were here in 2022 will recall that the Act has built into it a statutory review of the legislation. That will involve public consultation. We will be obligated as an Oireachtas to consider the legislation during the lifetime of this Dáil.

We will be obligated to, quite rightly, have a public consultation as part of that. At EU level, there is a review of the EU whistleblower directive, which is Directive 2019/1937, expected next year. The amended Act we have is a transposition of the EU whistleblower directive. That will be charged with reporting to both the European Parliament and the Council on the national law transposing the directive, so it asks how every country is getting on with fulfilling their EU obligations and whether any additional measures are considered appropriate for any member state in the European Union's analysis of people's compliance with that directive. The Commission has indicated the report will be finalised no later than 2026.

I say that by way of context for some of the broader issues the Deputy raised, because protecting whistleblowers is important. People who come forward in the public interest need to know that they can do so in an environment that is safe. That is the purpose of our legislation and indeed it was the purpose of the broadening of the scope of the legislation in 2022, where we made it clear that there was a broader range of people who could report wrongdoing, beyond employees, to include volunteers, shareholders, trainees, board members and job applicants, and ensure they benefited from the protection of the law. It also imposes new requirements on employers as regards the operation of a formal whistleblowing channel. There are also now special channels for the reporting of wrongdoing relating to law enforcement, security, defence, international relations or intelligence. Our law of the land, the Act, prohibits any penalisation or threat of penalisation for a worker who has made a protected disclosure. Penalisation can include unfair dismissal, unfair treatment, coercion, intimidation or harassment. Statutory protection from penalisation is provided primarily by the Workplace Relations Commission, which can make orders for restitution and payment of up to five years' salary in compensation. Cases can be appealed to the Labour Court.

Ken O'Flynn (Cork North-Central, Independent Ireland Party)
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I thank the Tánaiste for his response but, with the greatest of respect, they are only words. We are talking about a man whose life has been left in a legal limbo for over half a decade and who has been defamed, isolated, ignored and ricocheted from one Department to another. Two senior Ministers, officials, and the chair and CEO of Tusla knew about this, and nothing has been done. I am asking the Tánaiste, not just as Tánaiste but as a senior officer of the State: Will he with meet me and will he meet with the whistleblower? Can we launch an investigation? Five years of this man's life have been ruined by no Minister taking responsibility and by nobody putting in place a full investigation. His life has been absolutely destroyed and there is still no action or accountability. This man was only doing his job. He was there to protect the agency and saw corporate governance and governmental issues with the agency. He made a disclosure and tried to protect the agency, and he was met with a wall of attack and silence.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy. When he criticised me about my response only being words, I am not sure what more I can provide in oral response to a question. I provided clearly in those words quite a bit of detail on the laws that are in place in our land. They are laws that those of us who are honoured to serve in government worked hard to put in place in 2014, with an enhancement in 2022. In the lifetime of this Government, we will carry out the statutory review. We are going to look at that at an EU level too

. Regarding the specific case, I am conscious of not knowing the detail. I am not doubting the Deputy's bona fides. I suggest that the appropriate thing to do would be to provide the relevant information to the relevant Department or Minister, who will process that in accordance with the laws of the land and the Protected Disclosures Act. Without knowing the details of the case or pre-judging any information that I do not yet know, the WRC and Labour Court are avenues that are available to any employee who experiences any discrimination.

Ken O'Flynn (Cork North-Central, Independent Ireland Party)
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He has been there and there has been no investigation since.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I cannot pre-judge. We have a WRC and Labour Court that are independent of government. We have An Garda Síochána. We have a number of avenues and robust whistleblower legislation. I suggest in the first instance, if the Deputy believes there are more issues that need to be considered, to provide them to the relevant Department.