Whistleblowers in the Garda Siochana are to receive protection in the Protected Disclosures Bill
which has passed the second stage in the Dail and has already been passed by the Seanad.
Brendan Howlin, Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, said that work was well under way in his Department
“to determine how best to ensure that a legal framework for Garda whistleblowing under the 2005 legislation is fully aligned with the principles enshrined in this new, modern Bill”.
He said
“This would allow GSOC operate within the architecture of the Protected Disclosures Bill and accept reports, complaints or observations from Garda whistleblowers or members of the Garda Síochána.”
“We need to have a robust, accurate framework for protecting somebody who identifies wrongdoing and wants it rectified, but also to protect people against whom accusations are made to ensure that false and damaging accusations are not allowed to be untested.”
“As with the normal balance of justice, we have to ensure that an accusation is not definitive proof. We have, I believe, in this complicated mechanism, struck the balance right in terms of best practice in the most progressive regimes we have looked at, and then migrated it into this legislation.”
And that
“a detailed review of the operation of the Act would be carried out within a five-year framework”.