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

These amendments are related to the provision for an offence for knowingly making false reports. Article 23.2 of the directive provides that such penalties should apply only to reporting persons who make such reports. The Bill as drafted, however, provides that a person who makes a report containing any information that the reporting person knows to be false commits an offence. A concern has been raised with my officials that this could be interpreted to apply not only to reporting persons but also to any other person who handles or transmits a false report, even if that person does not know the information is false. This could have unintended consequences for a whole range of people, including employers, prescribed persons, the commissioner, legal advisers and any other facilitators who handle reports or assist a person in making a report. These amendments address this issue by making it explicit that this offence applies only to reporting persons.

I am not accepting amendment No. 51. It provides for the inclusion of “provides knowingly false information in relation to a reporting person” as an offence. Provision of false information to discredit a reporting person or cause him or her detriment is encompassed by the definition of penalisation, which states that any direct or indirect act or omission which occurs in a work-related context and causes or may cause unjustified detriment to a worker, penalising or threatening to penalise a reporting person, is already a criminal offence in the Bill. There is no requirement in the directive to draw such a specific offence out of the general requirement to provide that penalisation or threatening to penalise is an offence.