Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank all Senators for their contributions and for the warm welcome the Bill has received across all sections of the House. That is what I expected. We have talked about consequences of our economic collapse in great detail but it was multidimensional and was more than an economic collapse. It was a failure of politics and of administration and we need to change the culture, which is a much more difficult thing to do than to change legislation. In order to change the culture, one must change the framework within which people operate and that means legislative change. We have a suite of legislative measures designed to inculcate a sense that the norm is to out the wrongdoer. I am very much taken by the comments of Senator Zappone on the purpose of the Bill. It is not simply to facilitate whistleblowing, to use the phrase that Senator Byrne had difficulty using because it is a loaded phrase, but to encourage that to be the norm.

I strongly agree with the comments of Senator Byrne on the Nyberg report. People did not read the Nyberg report in detail as well as they might because of the visceral view that we must point the finger at someone. Understanding the background to what happened is important if we are to put in place a framework that prevents what happened, on the adverse side of things, recurring.

The Senator asked a specific question about the pre-legislative scrutiny and the work of committees, which was taken up by Senator Zappone. I have long been an advocate of a different way of legislating. I will not have too many allies here but I believe in a single Chamber Parliament, having considered it carefully and approaching the issue with an open mind. However, this must be an effective single Chamber and should not be a conveyor belt for legislation. It should open itself to external inputs, which was the original idea of the Seanad. The idea was to have external influences of a specialist variety from the panels of expertise deemed to be the norm in the 1930s, such as labour, education and cultural panels. The items of legislation in the suite of legislative changes being introduced on the reform side will go through an extensive pre-legislative consultation.

With regard to this Bill, we had an extensive external dialogue and submissions from the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, IBEC and civic society. The committee had its own views and held hearings and invited submissions. I found the committee's report to be of great value. It is instanced in some of the commentary that there was a migration of thought on a range of issues from the original heads of the Bill to the finished product. We migrated into the original proposals the idea of good faith reporting. People might ask why it is not in the Bill now but we looked deeper and got the advice of people. It is actually an impediment to reporting because people can report wrongdoing with bad motivation. The Shipman report in Britain was cognisant of that. Impugning the motives of the whistleblower could destroy the whistleblowing. That was one of the myriad issues that changed during the thought process that we opened to external views.

I am not suggesting for a second that it is perfect legislation. There is no such animal and all legislation is subject to further modification and refinement but the Bill must also slot into the Irish situation. We cannot take an off-the-shelf view of the UK, Australian, South African or New Zealand legislation, which are exemplars, and slot them in. We must take cognisance of our situation.

Senator Sheahan spoke about a code of practice and its timing. I do not expect this to fly through the Oireachtas. There will be a process in this House and then in the other House. It is envisaged that the code of practice, which is important, will be in place at that time. There is always a dichotomy between saying whether the ordinary citizen can read legislation. Very few try to and we need the citizen's guide to it and the code of practice will function as that.

This is a firm delivery of a programme for Government commitment. Senator Zappone referred to the complexity of the Bill, which I acknowledge, but it needs to be legally robust as it will be interpreted and challenged in the courts. That is why there is unavoidable complexity at times. I do not accept, subject to listening to the argument, that we need oversight of oversight and providing a role for the Ombudsman or the Irish Human Rights Commission to oversee the overseer. If HIQA is the mechanism to which someone whistleblows about something going on in a State-funded nursery, do we need to have someone to monitor the monitors? Perhaps we need a reporting regime. We do not want to have evermore reporting mechanisms to deliver more reports. We need practicality in these matters.

I welcome the kind comments of Senator Higgins with regard to the history and evolution of these proposals but we are now where we want to be. The idea of an overarching single comprehensive item of legislation, affecting both private and public sectors, is important. Senator Higgins raised an interesting point about the trade union charter. It is not a bad idea and I will raise it with ICTU. Perhaps IBEC will do the same with its members. It should signal to union members and workers that this is important, that these are their rights and that the union will provide help with it.

Senator Quinn raised a number of issues. It is very hard to provide in legislation for a regime whereby, if I raise the matter with an employer, the employer offers a little bung if I shut up. How do we deal with that? It is a difficult question. There is no log of State employees who have been gagged. It is not a matter that is reported and it is not something we can have a charter about, but I am sure it happens. Senator Quinn posits his solution, which is a reward system. I am a little uncomfortable with this. Motivation should be the best motivation although I have already said that people may be motivated by the wrong issue. I can provide a concrete example. In the Morris tribunal concerning Garda corruption in Donegal, one of the whistleblowers was in a family dispute. Very important information came into the public domain because of a family dispute. We can impugn the motive but the information, which was shocking, would not have come to light if the person had not been motivated, for good or ill, to put it into the public sphere. I am a little nervous about the notion of rewards per se.

Senator Reilly welcomed the Bill and proffered her party support, which I welcome. She underscored the issue of white-collar crime and I agree it is important. We are looking at new legislation to deal with white-collar crime specifically. It is an area we have not handled very well as a society. We put less focus on it than we do on ordinary decent criminals. We have been egregiously damaged by white-collar criminals.

Many of them have not felt touched by the law forces of the State. I hope that is changing and will change because we certainly need it to change.

We looked at the issue of interim relief. It is contained in the UK legislation, but its labour regulatory bodies are judicial bodies, whereas ours are not because under the Constitution, the courts are the only bodies which can stand as a court. It is not readily applicable, but we have not given up on looking at the prospect of providing some mechanism in this regard. This issue will be considered during the passage of the Bill.

I thank all Senators for their contributions and look forward to detailed interaction with them. I am completely open to good suggestions from wherever they come.