Speaking in the Dáil on strengthening whistleblower protections, enforcement, and accountability in public administration, Paul Murphy and Richard Boyd Barrett highlight the punishment of people who come forward to report wrongs being done, and the injustice of the system in which whistleblowers can be harassed and bullied.
Paul Murphy says “whistleblowers are ordinary people who take a decision to do the right thing. They see wrong being done, be it springs inserted wrongly into children, unnecessary operations on children, abuse taking place in our care homes, wrongdoings in the Irish Prison Service or abuse and mistreatment of animals and workers at Dublin Zoo. They see things taking place they know are wrong and decide that they will do the right thing about it.
What opens for them then is not really what they expect, in some cases. They go to do the right thing, they make a protected disclosure and then, in many cases, they face very serious consequences for their whole life. They face very serious harassment, like in the case of Noel McGree, who was evicted, with his family, into homelessness which flowed from protected disclosures about the Irish Prison Service, for which he was vindicated.
Whistleblowers get harassed out of their workplace and never get what they have sought by speaking out. The problem with the Government's approach is that it is basically saying, "Fair play to the whistleblowers but everything is fine here in terms of legislation". However, the reality of people's experiences is that everything is very far from being okay.”
Richard Boyd Barrett added that “members of the Defence Forces who have been working with dangerous chemicals that affected their health and even their fertility were allegedly denied a presentation you get when you finish in the Defence Forces, because they had made a protected disclosure about health and safety issues.
When I asked the Minister about this, he said that “I am assured by Military Management that no member of the Defence Forces is denied anything on foot of having made a protected disclosure.” A member of the Defence Forces says military management are penalising them for making a protected disclosure over the behaviour of military management. The Minister then goes to military management to ask whether this is true and military management says of course it is not true. It is either incredible incompetence or, even worse, the Minister is in on it and in on the attempt to suppress the protected disclosure with military management.
Similarly, film workers are blacklisted from the industry because they raised questions about the failure to implement things like the fixed-term workers' legislation. Line producers who employ the people have said they will never employ them again based on their view of it. They are the people who have the power.
The problem is that there is no independent adjudication, so workers have no defence against blacklisting in the film industry, even though the Irish State funds the film industry. The Department of Arts goes to the people against whom the allegations are made to ask whether the allegations are true. The people who get the money from the Department say of course they are not true, and they are totally innocent. This has to stop”.