By John Devitt
The Irish Times online headline today looked promising. 'Whistleblower legislation to be fast-tracked', it read. Pressure has mounted on the Government to introduce whistleblower protection in the wake of the Rostrevor nursing home scandal. People have been afraid to speak up about abuse of patients, fraud and corruption because of weak whistleblower safeguards. Now, the absence of a robust whistleblower charter leaves those courageous people who exposed the alleged physical abuse of elderly patients at the Dublin care home vulnerable to unemployment and deportation.
The plight of the Rostrevor whistleblowers and many others should have inspired the introduction of meaningful safeguards for all workers exposing abuse and corruption. However, when questioned in the Dáil today, Minister for Education Ruairi Quinn announced that his government will renege on his party’s and Fine Gael’s election promises and continue Fianna Fáil's policy of the 'sector by sector' approach to whistleblower legislation. In other words, thousands of civil servants and people working in the private sector will be left without adequate protection. The patch-work quilt of legislation that leaves most workers, including nurses and care-workers, without proper assurances will remain in place. Most potential whistleblowers will be left to wonder whether they can report abuse without fear of reprisal.
We had good reason to believe Government would honour its commitment to a universal charter. The Labour Party tabled the Whistleblower Bill 2010 last February to provide for blanket protections for whistleblowers. Fine Gael also pledged to introduce a single "whistleblower charter" in its Open Government Bill published around the same time.
Minister Quinn has now announced that 'international experience' has shown that such an approach would be cumbersome. Surely someone should have explained that to his colleagues before they made their promise of a universal charter to voters just four months ago. The Minister should also cite this international experience when explaining his Government's u-turn on whistleblower protection. As far as we are aware, there is none.
Read our An Alternative to Silence study on legal safeguards for whistleblowers in Ireland.
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