Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is good to see the Minister of State. He is welcome.

The Bill is to be welcomed for the most part. My colleagues in the Dáil have played a key role in terms of amendments to the Bill. Improving the existing legislation is long overdue. Down the years, we have heard all too often of the horror stories and treatment of whistleblowers when they came forward and spoke out. Attempts by authorities to protect their reputations have often resulted in destroying the whistleblowers' reputations. There is usually a circling of the wagons and a casting of aspersions on the characters or motivations of the whistleblowers. However, whistleblowers play a vital role in our society. It is well known that whistleblowing is one of the most effective ways of stopping wrongdoing. Many cases of corruption and fraud are exposed by workers reporting same to their employers, regulators or the press.

It needs to be said that the Bill only came about because of the EU’s whistleblowing directive and its mandatory reporting requirements as opposed to a desire by the Government to improve our existing legislation on protected disclosures. However, from what we have seen in the Dáil debates and the extensive work completed by the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach, the Minister has worked well with all parties and none and has taken on board some of the issues raised by academics and groups such as Transparency International and the Irish Council for Civil Liberties.There was engagement with bodies representing the legal profession and those working within mental health services. All of this engagement played a valuable role in helping to shape the 60 recommendations of the pre-legislative scrutiny report. I would also like to acknowledge all of the work my Sinn Féin colleagues, Deputies Mairéad Farrell and Buckley, have put into this Bill. They worked as constructively as possible with the Government parties at each stage. They had introduced legislation to amend the Protected Disclosures Act 2014 last December and, I believe, many of Deputy Mairéad Farrell's proposed amendments were accepted. However, there are still a few concerns I would like to raise with the Minister of State.

Removing the right to make protected disclosures directly to a Minister under section 8 is a retrograde step. Experts who appeared before the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform and Taoiseach were also of this view. The Office of the Parliamentary Legal Adviser had similar concerns. There are legitimate concerns that this could violate the non-regression clause in the directive, which states that the transposition must not be used as an opportunity to lower existing standards. New restrictive conditions are introduced which must be met before a public service worker can make a disclosure to the Minister. This means that these workers will generally have to exhaust the internal procedures in their workplace before making a protected disclosure to the Minister. Our amendments in this regard propose the deletion of the entire section on the new stepped procedure.

I differ with my good colleague, Senator Wilson, on explicitly exempting relevant organisations from accepting anonymous disclosures because there are very real reasons why someone may need to make an anonymous disclosure. In the case of an instance of child abuse or something of that nature, a person may wish to hide his or her identity. Certain organisations should not be able to refuse to accept such disclosures.

On rejecting protected disclosures that can be characterised as interpersonal grievances, if a protected disclosure can be characterised as deriving from an interpersonal grievance, for instance, if bullying was involved, the employer would be able to channel this complaint down the road of a respect and dignity complaint rather than a protected disclosure. This would lower protections for someone making a genuine protected disclosure which has been misclassified as a bullying complaint. If there is serious wrongdoing that someone wishes to reveal, the motivation of the discloser should not be grounds to prevent acceptance as a protected disclosure and to deny the worker the protections he or she would receive as a result of having made one.

My fourth concern relates to the introduction of criminal penalties for knowingly making false reports. This is likely to be used as a deterrent by employers to discourage people from making protected disclosures. For example, as part of the information employers must provide to employees, a warning that employees could face criminal sanction could be included, which could have a chilling effect.

I have a couple of other points to make. On the resourcing of the new office, some concerns have been raised with regard to making sure this resourcing is adequate. There has been talk of this new office having three staff members, which would clearly not be adequate. I would welcome any assurances the Minister of State can give in that regard. I support the point Senator Garvey made with regard to including human rights defenders and front-line defenders. I wonder if the Senator would consider submitting an amendment on this matter on Committee Stage and how the Minister of State would feel about such an amendment.

There is an opportunity here in the Seanad to look at these issues further before the Bill goes back to the Dáil, which it will as the Minister of State has indicated that he proposes amendments to it, which are also welcome. I acknowledge that there are difficulties with the issue of the retrospective application of the Bill but, if anything can be worked out in order to expand protection for whistleblowers who fall through the cracks, that would be very worthwhile. Sinn Féin is happy to support the passage of this Bill. We hope the Minister of State will continue to engage constructively with us, particularly with regard to the amendments we intend to table on the points I have raised.