I must now deal with a postponed division relating to the motion regarding whistleblower protections. Today, on the question, "That the amendment to the motion be agreed to", a division was claimed and in accordance with Standing Order 85(2), that division must be taken now.
Strengthening Whistleblower Protections, Enforcement, and Accountability in Public Administration: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members]
The following motion was moved by Deputy Richard O'Donoghue on Wednesday, 26 November 2025:
That Dáil Éireann:
acknowledges that:
— the Protected Disclosures Act 2014, as amended, was enacted to give effect to the European Union's Whistleblowing Directive and to protect persons who, in good faith, report wrongdoing in the public interest;
— despite these statutory protections, numerous whistleblowers have faced retaliation, career destruction, delay or suppression of their disclosures through misuse of process, non-investigation, or coercive confidentiality agreements;
— the persistent failure of State bodies and prescribed authorities to investigate credible disclosures in a timely and transparent manner constitutes a denial of justice, a breach of Ireland's obligations under Articles 10 and 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and a gross abuse of administrative power;
— the misuse of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) within the public service has had the effect of silencing victims of wrongdoing, concealing public malfeasance, and undermining the deterrent effect of whistleblowing law;
— the absence of enforceable personal sanctions for officials who obstruct investigations, destroy evidence, or delay disclosure processes has eroded confidence in the rule of law and in Ireland's commitment to transparency and integrity; and
— comparative evidence from the Czech Republic, the United States of America, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand demonstrates that timely investigations, transparent publication of outcomes, enforceable penalties for delay, and, where appropriate, reward mechanisms for disclosures leading to recovery of public funds are essential to make whistleblower protection truly effective;
recognises that:
— the protection of whistleblowers is a matter of constitutional importance, engaging the State's duties under Article 40.3 of Bunreacht na hÉireann to defend and vindicate personal rights, and under Article 41 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union to ensure good administration; and
— effective legislation must therefore, guarantee:
— swift and independent investigation of disclosures;
— protection against penalisation and coercive NDAs;
— access to legal aid, counselling, and support;
— enforceable sanctions for officials who obstruct investigations; and
— full compensation for those who suffer detriment through State inaction or abuse of power; and
accordingly, calls on the Government to:
— introduce a Protected Disclosures (Strengthening, Enforcement and Transparency) Amendment Bill, to establish a statutory duty on all public bodies to initiate timely, impartial, and transparent investigations, require publication of anonymised progress reports, and empower the Office of the Protected Disclosures Commissioner (OPDC) to levy financial and disciplinary sanctions for failure to act;
— create personal accountability provisions making it an offence for any officer or employee of the State to obstruct or delay an investigation, destroy or alter documents, or knowingly provide false information;
— establish a statutory right of mandamus and judicial remedy, enabling a whistleblower to apply to the High Court to compel a public authority to perform its investigative duty;
— provide full compensation, reinstatement, and exemplary damages to whistleblowers who suffer detriment due to refusal or obstruction of investigation;
— establish a whistleblower legal aid and support fund to provide representation, counselling, and rehabilitative assistance to whistleblowers and their families;
— amend the Protected Disclosures Act 2014, to prohibit the use of NDAs that restrict a whistleblower's right to describe wrongdoing or penalisation, deeming any such clause void unless expressly requested by the whistleblower with independent legal advice;
— require all public bodies to certify annually to the OPDC, that no prohibited NDA has been used in any settlement relating to a protected disclosure;
— mandate publication of quarterly data identifying public bodies that have failed to provide documentation, or complete investigations, within statutory timelines;
— introduce escalating sanctions for repeated or systemic non-compliance, including administrative fines, public censure, referral to oversight bodies and budgetary penalties;
— expand the remit of the OPDC to include audit and inspection powers, and coordination with other enforcement authorities;
— develop a pilot whistleblower reward and recovery scheme, modelled on international practice, allowing modest percentage awards from recovered public funds;
— insert an express statutory duty of cooperation and transparency, requiring all authorities to provide requested information within 14 days, or face a rebuttable presumption of obstruction;
— empower the courts to award costs and punitive damages against public bodies or officials found to have acted in bad faith;
— provide for independent oversight by the Office of the Ombudsman and the Oireachtas Committee of Public Accounts; and
— require a statutory review within three years of commencement, to evaluate the effectiveness of the new provisions.
Debate resumed on amendment No. 1:
To delete all the words after "Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following:
"notes that:
— the Protected Disclosures Act 2014, protects workers from penalisation for speaking up about wrongdoing in the workplace; and
— persons who make protected disclosures or 'whistleblowers' should not be treated unfairly, lose their job or face legal proceedings because they have made a protected disclosure;
recognises that:
— the enacted Protected Disclosures Act 2014, was further enhanced by the Protected Disclosures (Amendment) Act 2022;
— the amended Act gives effect to the European Union (EU) Directive 2019/1937 ('the Whistleblowing Directive'), which requires Member States to ensure that:
— whistleblowers have at their disposal effective channels to report breaches of EU rules confidentially, both internally (within an organisation) and externally (to a competent authority);
— whistleblowers' reports are properly investigated and acted upon by the organisations and competent authorities; and
— whistleblowers are protected from retaliation;
— the Directive provides that the European Commission (EC) must furnish a report to the European Parliament and to the Council, assessing the impact of national law transposing the Directive, and the report must consider the functioning of the Directive and whether additional measures are appropriate;
— in July 2024, the EC indicated that this report would be finalised 'no later than 2026';
— Section 10A of the Protected Disclosures (Amendment) Act 2022, provides for the establishment of the Office of the Protected Disclosures Commissioner, which commenced operations on 1st January, 2023;
— Section 2A of the Protected Disclosures (Amendment) Act 2022, provides for a statutory review of the Act to be commenced not later than five years from the date of this Act being passed; and
— this review is due to complete in 2027, and a public consultation will be carried out prior to this review; and
further notes that:
— the Government remains committed to supporting and protecting whistleblowers;
— a review of the Protected Disclosures Act 2014, took place in 2018;
— a comprehensive public and stakeholder review of the Protected Disclosures (Amendment) Act 2022, is statutorily due to take place by 2027, with a public consultation on same to begin next year, and Section 14A of the Act already makes it an offence for any person to hinder, or attempt to hinder, a worker in making a report, penalise, or threaten to penalise, a reporting person, bring vexatious proceedings against a reporting person, breach the confidentiality of a reporting person, provide false information or fail to comply with the requirement in section 6(3), to establish, maintain and operate internal reporting channels and procedures referred to in the said section 6(3);
— neither the Act nor the EU Directive requires that an investigation is carried out for every report of wrongdoing that is received, and in many cases an investigation may not be appropriate as no prima facie evidence of a relevant wrongdoing may have been discovered, or the issues highlighted in a report may not meet the definition of a relevant wrongdoing, as set out in section 5(3) of the Act, and some reports may also highlight issues that are more appropriately addressed through complaints or human resources processes;
— statutory protection from penalisation is already provided primarily by the Workplace Relations Commission, who can make orders for restitution and the payment of up to five years' salary in compensation, cases can be appealed to the Labour Court or, alternatively, a whistleblower can sue for damages in court, where there is no maximum award of compensation;
— Exchequer grant support has been provided to Transparency International Ireland since 2016, for the provision of a free 'Speak Up Helpline' and Free Legal Advice Centre service for persons considering making a protected disclosure, or who have made a protected disclosure;
— Section 15 of the Act already states that workers are immune from civil legal action by the employer (e.g. for breach of confidentiality clauses in their contract of employment);
— Section 23 of the Act also provides that it is not permitted to have clauses in agreements that:
— prohibit or restrict the making of protected disclosures;
— exclude or limit the operation of any provision of the Act;
— preclude a person from bringing any proceedings under, or by virtue of, the Act; and
— preclude a person from bringing proceedings for breach of contract in respect of anything done on consequence of the making of a protected disclosure;
— Section 14A of the Act already sets outs the actions in relation to processing a protected disclosure that are deemed to be a criminal offence, and administrative fees may be considered in the context of the statutory review; and
— the courts are already empowered to award costs and damages in relation to protected disclosures, and Section 14A provides for criminal charges to be brought against a person/official.".
- (Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy Michael Healy-Rae)
Amendment put:
The Dáil divided: Tá, 75; Níl, 62; Staon, 0.
Tá
- Aird, William.
- Ardagh, Catherine.
- Boland, Grace.
- Brabazon, Tom.
- Brennan, Brian.
- Brennan, Shay.
- Browne, James.
- Burke, Colm.
- Burke, Peter.
- Butler, Mary.
- Butterly, Paula.
- Buttimer, Jerry.
- Byrne, Malcolm.
- Cahill, Michael.
- Callaghan, Catherine.
- Carrigy, Micheál.
- Carroll MacNeill, Jennifer.
- Chambers, Jack.
- Cleere, Peter 'Chap'.
- Clendennen, John.
- Connolly, John.
- Cooney, Joe.
- Crowe, Cathal.
- Currie, Emer.
- Daly, Martin.
- Dempsey, Aisling.
- Devlin, Cormac.
- Dolan, Albert.
- Dooley, Timmy.
- Feighan, Frankie.
- Fleming, Sean.
- Foley, Norma.
- Geoghegan, James.
- Grealish, Noel.
- Healy-Rae, Danny.
- Healy-Rae, Michael.
- Heneghan, Barry.
- Heydon, Martin.
- Higgins, Emer.
- Keogh, Keira.
- Lahart, John.
- Lawless, James.
- Maxwell, David.
- McAuliffe, Paul.
- McCarthy, Noel.
- McConalogue, Charlie.
- McCormack, Tony.
- McGrath, Séamus.
- McGreehan, Erin.
- Moran, Kevin Boxer.
- Moynihan, Aindrias.
- Moynihan, Michael.
- Moynihan, Shane.
- Murphy, Michael.
- Neville, Joe.
- O'Brien, Darragh.
- O'Callaghan, Jim.
- O'Connor, James.
- O'Donnell, Kieran.
- O'Donovan, Patrick.
- O'Meara, Ryan.
- O'Shea, John Paul.
- O'Sullivan, Christopher.
- O'Sullivan, Pádraig.
- Ó Cearúil, Naoise.
- Ó Muirí, Naoise.
- Richmond, Neale.
- Roche, Peter.
- Scanlon, Eamon.
- Smith, Brendan.
- Smyth, Niamh.
- Timmins, Edward.
- Toole, Gillian.
- Troy, Robert.
- Ward, Barry.
Níl
- Ahern, Ciarán.
- Bacik, Ivana.
- Bennett, Cathy.
- Brady, John.
- Buckley, Pat.
- Byrne, Joanna.
- Carthy, Matt.
- Collins, Michael.
- Conway-Walsh, Rose.
- Coppinger, Ruth.
- Cronin, Réada.
- Crowe, Seán.
- Cullinane, David.
- Daly, Pa.
- Doherty, Pearse.
- Donnelly, Paul.
- Ellis, Dessie.
- Farrelly, Aidan.
- Farrell, Mairéad.
- Fitzmaurice, Michael.
- Gogarty, Paul Nicholas.
- Gould, Thomas.
- Graves, Ann.
- Guirke, Johnny.
- Hayes, Eoin.
- Healy, Seamus.
- Kenny, Eoghan.
- Kenny, Martin.
- Kerrane, Claire.
- Lawlor, George.
- Mac Lochlainn, Pádraig.
- McGettigan, Donna.
- McGuinness, Conor D.
- Mitchell, Denise.
- Murphy, Paul.
- Mythen, Johnny.
- Nash, Ged.
- Newsome Drennan, Natasha.
- Nolan, Carol.
- O'Callaghan, Cian.
- O'Donoghue, Richard.
- O'Donoghue, Robert.
- O'Flynn, Ken.
- O'Gorman, Roderic.
- O'Hara, Louis.
- O'Reilly, Louise.
- O'Rourke, Darren.
- Ó Laoghaire, Donnchadh.
- Ó Murchú, Ruairí.
- Ó Snodaigh, Aengus.
- Ó Súilleabháin, Fionntán.
- Quaide, Liam.
- Quinlivan, Maurice.
- Rice, Pádraig.
- Sheehan, Conor.
- Sherlock, Marie.
- Smith, Duncan.
- Stanley, Brian.
- Wall, Mark.
- Ward, Charles.
- Ward, Mark.
- Whitmore, Jennifer.
Staon
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Mary Butler and Emer Currie; Níl, Deputies Ken O'Flynn and Richard O'Donoghue.
Amendment declared carried.
Question put: "That the motion, as amended, be agreed to."
The Dáil divided: Tá, 75; Níl, 62; Staon, 0.
Tá
- Aird, William.
- Ardagh, Catherine.
- Boland, Grace.
- Brabazon, Tom.
- Brennan, Brian.
- Brennan, Shay.
- Browne, James.
- Burke, Colm.
- Burke, Peter.
- Butler, Mary.
- Butterly, Paula.
- Buttimer, Jerry.
- Byrne, Malcolm.
- Cahill, Michael.
- Callaghan, Catherine.
- Carrigy, Micheál.
- Carroll MacNeill, Jennifer.
- Chambers, Jack.
- Cleere, Peter 'Chap'.
- Clendennen, John.
- Connolly, John.
- Cooney, Joe.
- Crowe, Cathal.
- Currie, Emer.
- Daly, Martin.
- Dempsey, Aisling.
- Devlin, Cormac.
- Dolan, Albert.
- Dooley, Timmy.
- Feighan, Frankie.
- Fleming, Sean.
- Foley, Norma.
- Geoghegan, James.
- Grealish, Noel.
- Healy-Rae, Danny.
- Healy-Rae, Michael.
- Heneghan, Barry.
- Heydon, Martin.
- Higgins, Emer.
- Keogh, Keira.
- Lahart, John.
- Lawless, James.
- Maxwell, David.
- McAuliffe, Paul.
- McCarthy, Noel.
- McConalogue, Charlie.
- McCormack, Tony.
- McGrath, Séamus.
- McGreehan, Erin.
- Moran, Kevin Boxer.
- Moynihan, Aindrias.
- Moynihan, Michael.
- Moynihan, Shane.
- Murphy, Michael.
- Neville, Joe.
- O'Brien, Darragh.
- O'Callaghan, Jim.
- O'Connor, James.
- O'Donnell, Kieran.
- O'Donovan, Patrick.
- O'Meara, Ryan.
- O'Shea, John Paul.
- O'Sullivan, Christopher.
- O'Sullivan, Pádraig.
- Ó Cearúil, Naoise.
- Ó Muirí, Naoise.
- Richmond, Neale.
- Roche, Peter.
- Scanlon, Eamon.
- Smith, Brendan.
- Smyth, Niamh.
- Timmins, Edward.
- Toole, Gillian.
- Troy, Robert.
- Ward, Barry.
Níl
- Ahern, Ciarán.
- Bacik, Ivana.
- Bennett, Cathy.
- Brady, John.
- Buckley, Pat.
- Byrne, Joanna.
- Carthy, Matt.
- Collins, Michael.
- Conway-Walsh, Rose.
- Coppinger, Ruth.
- Cronin, Réada.
- Crowe, Seán.
- Cullinane, David.
- Daly, Pa.
- Doherty, Pearse.
- Donnelly, Paul.
- Ellis, Dessie.
- Farrelly, Aidan.
- Farrell, Mairéad.
- Fitzmaurice, Michael.
- Gogarty, Paul Nicholas.
- Gould, Thomas.
- Graves, Ann.
- Guirke, Johnny.
- Hayes, Eoin.
- Healy, Seamus.
- Kenny, Eoghan.
- Kenny, Martin.
- Kerrane, Claire.
- Lawlor, George.
- Mac Lochlainn, Pádraig.
- McGettigan, Donna.
- McGuinness, Conor D.
- Mitchell, Denise.
- Murphy, Paul.
- Mythen, Johnny.
- Nash, Ged.
- Newsome Drennan, Natasha.
- Nolan, Carol.
- O'Callaghan, Cian.
- O'Donoghue, Richard.
- O'Donoghue, Robert.
- O'Flynn, Ken.
- O'Gorman, Roderic.
- O'Hara, Louis.
- O'Reilly, Louise.
- O'Rourke, Darren.
- Ó Laoghaire, Donnchadh.
- Ó Murchú, Ruairí.
- Ó Snodaigh, Aengus.
- Ó Súilleabháin, Fionntán.
- Quaide, Liam.
- Quinlivan, Maurice.
- Rice, Pádraig.
- Sheehan, Conor.
- Sherlock, Marie.
- Smith, Duncan.
- Stanley, Brian.
- Wall, Mark.
- Ward, Charles.
- Ward, Mark.
- Whitmore, Jennifer.
Staon
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Mary Butler and Emer Currie; Níl, Deputies Ken O'Flynn and Richard O'Donoghue.
Question declared.