Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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1264. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the number of protected disclosures submitted to the Irish Prison Service in the past ten years. [15317/21]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The Protected Disclosures Act 2014 introduced the statutory protection from penalisation for people raising allegations of wrongdoing in the workplace. The legislation came into effect on 15 July 2014.  Since 2015, 56 allegations of wrongdoing in respect of the Irish Prison Service were submitted to either my Department or the Irish Prison Service.

I would point out that, in line with the requirements of the 2014 Act, both the Irish Prison Service and my Department publish annual reports in relation to Protected Disclosures on their websites www.irishprisons.ieand www.justice.ieso the information requested by the Deputy is publicly available. However for the Deputy’s convenience, the information is also set out below.

I am informed that the Irish Prison Service has its own Protected Disclosures Policy in place since July 2018 and workers can communicate their disclosures either directly to the Irish Prison Service or to my Department.

When a disclosure of an alleged relevant wrongdoing is made to the Irish Prison Service, a Protected Disclosures Assessor, who is an independent, external party, is appointed to undertake an initial assessment of the disclosure under the Protected Disclosure Policy and Procedures.  I am informed that this assessment process involves an assessment of the disclosure to determine whether or not it should be treated as a protected disclosure, having regard to a number of relevant matters. If the Assessor concludes that the disclosure should be treated as a protected disclosure, the Protected Disclosures Manager will notify the worker who made the disclosure that an investigation will be undertaken by the External Investigator. Any allegations of wrongdoing deemed by the Assessor to be outside the scope of the Act are addressed or investigated under the appropriate process.

I am informed that of the 56 allegations made since 2015, 31 were assessed and sent for investigation as a protected disclosures. Of those 2 were fully upheld, 4 were partially upheld and 18 are still under examination.