Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

104. To ask the Minister for Finance the number of protected disclosures his Department has received since the legislation was introduced; the number of protected disclosures examined to conclusion by year in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5305/20]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

A comprehensive and exhaustive response to the Deputy's question is not possible and the reasons for this are set out below, along with data for published numbers of protected disclosures as required under Section 22 of the Protected Disclosures Act 2014.

In broad terms a protected disclosure is a disclosure of information which the discloser believes may reveal wrongdoing and which came to the attention of the discloser through their employment. This is a very broad category of information and I expect that in many cases disclosures falling into this category are received and dealt with properly without the person making the disclosure or those receiving it ever adverting to the fact that the information constitutes a protected disclosure.

It is also generally irrelevant to the manner in which such information is dealt with whether the disclosure concerned falls within the legal definition of a protected disclosure, since the obligations which arise in respect of protected disclosures consist principally of not penalising the discloser for making the disclosure and protecting the identity of the person making the disclosure in some circumstances. These obligations would be routinely met without the need for any legal obligation to compel this to occur, so that it is generally not relevant whether the information constitutes a protected disclosure within the meaning of the legislation or not. It is therefore impossible to be certain that no disclosures which fall within the definition of protected disclosures but which have not been formally identified as such have been received and in fact it is very likely that this has occurred.

It is for these reasons that it is not possible to provide a comprehensive and exhaustive response to the Deputy's question. Having said that, it is important to state that the Department of Finance has put in place policy and procedures for the making of Protected Disclosures in the Department, which have been developed in line with the Protected Disclosures Act, 2014 and agreed by the Department’s Executive Board. This sets out the process by which a ‘worker’ of the Department can make a protected disclosure, what will happen when a disclosure is made and what the Department will do to protect the discloser.

The process supports the Department’s strong commitment to ensuring that the culture and working environment of the Department encourage, facilitate and support any member of staff of the Department in ‘speaking up’ on any issue that may impact adversely on the Department’s ability to properly and fully carry out all its roles and responsibilities to the high performance standard required. Two alternative confidential recipients have been nominated to receive protected disclosures from internal staff, in the event that a staff member does not wish to make the disclosure to their line manager or the normal senior management team. These nominees are the Head of Legal and the Head of Compliance. To date, neither of these officers have received such an internal protected disclosure.

Section 22 of the Protected Disclosures Act requires the publication of a report in respect of protected disclosures received in the preceding year setting out certain information in respect of protected disclosures received. For the purposes of complying with Section 22, the Department publishes informatoin regarding Protected Disclosures formally identified as such, without identifying the person making the disclosure. Previous reports indicate that one protected disclosure was received in 2017 and one in 2018. One protected disclosure received during 2019 will be included in the report to be published by June of this year. That disclosure remains under active investigation and correspondence with the discloser is ongoing.