Ivana Bacik (Independent)

I concur with Senator Regan. In subsection (5) a reference is made to an employee "having formed an opinion". This requires that the person has done a certain amount of work in coming to an opinion, which is rather different from having come to a suspicion.

On whistleblower protection, it occurred to me that one specific act of whistleblowing by a midwife in a maternity hospital prevented a great deal of further harm being done in the Minister's constituency. The young woman in question blew the whistle after years of malpractice by a particular consultant who had unnecessarily removed women's reproductive organs over a period of years. As the Minister is aware, this is a matter of public knowledge which was the subject of RTE documentaries and dramas and a public inquiry into the practices in question. The Minister read out a list in his Department which details Acts and Bills containing protections for whistleblowers. The legislation listed does not provide protection for a young midwife, nurse or doctor who may blow the whistle on malpractice in the health sector or a particular hospital.

The act of whistleblowing on the part of the young midwife to whom I refer has done more public service than any other act of whistleblowing and people will remember it as having done the most good. The individual has never been publicly identified, including in Judge Harding Clark's report on the case. While we do not know what happened to her, the general wisdom is that it was made very difficult for her to continue working in the hospital in question. I have not found protection for whistleblowers in the health service in the Minister's list.