Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This forms part of the package of measures we are providing for retrospective application of the legislation.

Section 20 provides for the amendment of section 42 of the Freedom of Information Act to create an exemption from the FOI Act for records pertaining to protected disclosures. This is in order to protect the identities of reporting persons and persons concerned and to prevent the FOI Act being misused to "out" a reporting person or to impede or frustrate follow-up on a protected disclosure. This amendment provides that this exclusion applies to any records pertaining to protected disclosures made by both old and new workers prior to the enactment of the Bill. Its purpose is to facilitate a retrospective application of the Bill in so far as we can.