Mark Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I support Senator Cahill on this. In a land of no consequences, where people who fail to act appropriately, or at all, never suffer the consequence of losing their jobs or positions, such things will go on. Last week we tried to introduce the corporate manslaughter Bill to prevent the recurrence of a situation such as the blood transfusion scandal, in which women were knowingly infected with hepatitis C but nobody was held to account and nobody was fired. That continues, because the proposal for a corporate manslaughter Bill by the Law Reform Commission in a report four years ago was not acted on. The safest country to commit white collar crime is Ireland, because there are no consequences for white collar crime and no consequences for civil servants who know that child abuse is going on because they know they will not get fired. Last week, when speaking about clerical abuse, I gave the example of a case in Florida in which the church has taken action against a priest who spoke out against a whistleblower. We have whistleblower protection here, but it is not enough. There must be consequences for people who do not do their jobs. One cannot fire people. The unions will not allow them to be fired, and the civil servants cannot be fired.