Written answers
Tuesday, 1 July 2025
Department of Public Expenditure and Reform
Protected Disclosures
Barry Ward (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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298. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform his views on whether existing legislation, related to whistleblowers, provides adequate protection to whistleblowers irrespective of the industry they might be involved with; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35878/25]
Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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I would like to thank the Deputy for his question.
As the Deputy is aware, Ireland has comprehensive legislation to protect workers who raise concerns about wrongdoing in the workplace. The Protected Disclosures Act was enacted in 2014. This legislation was further enhanced by the Protected Disclosures Amendment Act 2022 (the 2022 Act).
The 2022 Act broadens the scope of those who can report wrongdoing beyond employees to include volunteers, shareholders, trainees, board members and job applicants. It also imposes new requirements on employers as regards the operation of formal whistleblowing channels.
There are also special channels for the reporting of wrongdoings related to law enforcement, security, defence, international relations and intelligence.
The Act prohibits penalisation or threat of penalisation of a worker for having made a protected disclosure. Penalisation includes:
- Unfair dismissal.
- Unfair treatment, such as suspension, demotion, loss of pay, change of working hours, reassignment, disciplinary action, etc.; and
- Coercion, intimidation and harassment.
Statutory protection from penalisation is provided primarily by the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC), who can make orders for restitution and the payment of up to 5 years’ salary in compensation. Cases can be appealed to the Labour Court. Alternatively, a worker can sue for damages in court, where there is no maximum award of compensation.
Workers are also immune from civil legal action by the employer (e.g. for breach of confidentiality clauses in their contract of employment). Similarly, if a worker faces criminal proceedings for disclosing restricted information, they can offer as a defence that they made a protected disclosure.
Recipients of protected disclosures are obliged under the Act to take all reasonable steps to keep the identity of the discloser confidential. This provides further protection against penalisation since if the identity of the reporting person is not widely known, they cannot be retaliated against.
The amended Act provides for criminal penalties for:
- Penalising a reporting person.
- Taking vexatious legal proceedings against a reporting person; and
- Disclosing the identity of a reporting person.
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