Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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580. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the status of the transposition into Irish law of the EU whistleblowing directive; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20558/21]

Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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The EU formally adopted Directive 2019/1937 on the protection of persons who report breaches of Union law ("the Whistleblowing Directive") on 23 October 2019. All Member States, including Ireland, have until 17 December 2021 to transpose the Directive into national law. Ireland is one of just 10 EU Member States to already have comprehensive whistleblowing laws in place, in the form of the Protected Disclosures Act 2014, and is considered a leading country in this field - most recently, the International Bar Association rated Ireland joint second in the world for the protections it provides to whistleblowers in a report published in March of this year.

My Department concluded a public consultation on the transposition of the Directive last July. Some 24 submissions were received from a wide range of both Irish and international interested parties and these have been published on the public consultation page on the gov.ie website.

The process of the transposition is ongoing and work on an initial draft of the transposing legislation is at an advanced stage and will be published later in the year with a view to enactment in advance of the deadline set by the Commission.