Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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422. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of protected disclosures received by his Department in each of the years 2019 to 2021 and to date in 2022, in tabular form; if an external contractor has been engaged regarding a protected disclosure over that time period; if so, the cost of same; and the number of protected disclosures that were rejected, accepted and that remain under review for the time period in question. [13053/22]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science did not come into existence until August 2020 and as such any disclosures made up until that time would have been made to the then Minister for Education and Skills. The table below gives a breakdown by year since 2019 of the number of applications made under Section 8 of the Protected Disclosures Act, 2014, the number that were rejected, accepted and that remain under review/ongoing for the time period in question.

There have been a total of 11 applications for protected disclosures made for the period 2019-2021. To date, 0 applications for protected disclosures have been received in 2022. The total figure relates to protected disclosures that were made under Section 8 of the Protected Disclosures Act 2014 by workers in the further and higher education sectors. There were no applications in which an external contractor was engaged regarding a protected disclosure over that time.