Mark Daly (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister to the House. His actions give truth to the quote:

The humblest citizen in all the land, when clad in the armour or a righteous cause, is stronger than all the hosts of error.

It is curious that I find myself in the situation of a whistleblower in this House - I am glad that the House affords protection to me - credible and trustworthy information that I got from a believable source that developers were buying back their properties from NAMA through third parties at less than the current market value. I met NAMA and gave the remedy to this, which is that all properties, which are essentially State assets, should be put on a website. However, NAMA, along with the media, has missed the point. They kept looking for the source and they wanted evidence. The media asking me to give up my source is ironic given that they rely on sources for their own information.

If public representatives such as, in his case, the Minister, Deputy Howlin, are given information by concerned citizens acting in the public interest and if we do not bring that to the attention to the House, to the public and to the relevant Ministers with solutions as to what can be done to prevent the ongoing loss to the taxpayer, then we are not doing our jobs. I welcome the fact that the Government is bringing in whistleblower legislation and Senator Mullen's motion to the House.

It is long overdue. Given what happened, it is ironic that in 2004 the Irish Bank Officials Association proposed whistleblower legislation and I am saddened to report that the reply it got back was that we needed comprehensive legislation. Although there was sectoral legislation but not enough in the financial world, there were those who acted. In the case of a particular bank, one individual who was a whistleblower suffered considerably as a consequence and lost his job in the bank for blowing the whistle on what was going on and has led partly to where the country is.

I put a question to the Minister which did not seem to be covered in his contribution. It is to do with the bank officials of whom I spoke and to do with the church and other organisations. While we would protect whistleblowers, what would be the position with those who knew there was wrongdoing going on and yet stood silent and did nothing? Should there be an element of punishment for those who, if in the same position as the Minister, chose not to act who were in dereliction of their duty? There are many cases like that in finance. It is very difficult to prove. People should realise that those who have not the heart and the civic mindedness to act in the public interest should be encouraged to do so in their own interests and that in the event that they have been given credible information and refuse to act because they are afraid of the consequences for themselves, there should be consequences for them.

I welcome Senator Mullen's motion and hope to see the Minister return to the House to tease out how the matter will be finalised. I encourage the Minister in protecting whistleblowers to provide for financial protection. In many cases, for example, where one was a priest in a church afraid to come forward because the vengeance that would come down upon him from on high might ensure that he would be sent to a parish that he found undesirable or a country to which he did not want to go, would there be protection for a whistleblower? Where somebody in any organisation stated that he or she blew a whistle and as a result has not maintained his or her job and position, and has been downgraded, castigated and set aside by the organisation, there must be an appeals mechanism so that where somebody must come out in public and tell what he or she knows, there are not consequences, not only financial but also for the position in which in some cases he or she would wish to continue. There should be a Government mechanism of an appeal system to which somebody can turn to state that he or she has lost out as a result of whistleblowing and wants the Government to instruct the organisation for whom he or she worked to reinstate him or her and to prevent him or her being blacklisted.

I look forward to the legislation coming into the House. I ask the Minister to consider not only whistleblower protection, but the consequences for those who knew what was going on and refused to act.