Katherine Zappone (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 4:

In page 15, lines 15 to 19, to delete subsection (1) and substitute the following:
"(1) A person to whom a protected disclosure is made, and any person to whom a protected disclosure is referred in the performance of that person's duties, shall take reasonable and available measures to ensure that they do not disclose any information that might identify the person by whom the protected disclosure was made.".

The protection of the identity of the whistleblower has been strengthened since the heads of the Bill were published. The disclosure of the identity is actionable but we think this could still benefit from a stronger level of protection to one of sanction. In addition, the current level of protection could be quite weak in practice because it requires all reasonable steps to be taken to protect identity which, in itself, is not particularly strong as a standard.

Amendment No. 4, therefore, seeks to strengthen the standard of protection.

Furthermore, in this section there is no breach of identity protection if the person to whom the protective disclosure is made or referred reasonably believes that the person by whom the protected disclosure was made does not object to the disclosure of any such information. That seems to be an odd and loosely drawn exception and certainly does not attach to the section a sense of importance of protecting the whistleblower's identity. Identification of the whistleblower could have serious consequences for their future employment, among other things, and should be strongly protected in the legislation.

That leads me to amendment No. 5 in which we suggest the deletion of subsection (2)(a). We do not see the rationale for it. Apologies if I dealt with two amendments.