New law centre to give free advice to Irish whistleblowers

Public Expenditure and Reform Minister Paschal Donohoe today launched a new independent law centre to provide specialist legal advice to whistleblowers.

The Transparency Legal Advice Centre (TLAC) will provide legal advice about the Protected Disclosures Act (PDA), among other things, to people who have made disclosures of wrongdoing or are considering doing so.

It comes as a survey shows Irish employers are supportive of whistleblowing but more must be done to raise awareness of the PDA.

The survey for Transparency International (TI) Ireland found 95 per cent of employers believe speaking up about wrongdoing is in the interests of their organisation, but only 64 per cent would encourage employees to report wrongdoing where it might harm their reputation.

Meanwhile, most employers are not aware of the PDA’s provisions and less than half of employees said they felt safe reporting a concern.

Mr Donohoe said: “It’s encouraging to see that employers have a generally positive outlook on whistleblowing.

“Nevertheless, these results suggests that much more needs to be done to raise awareness of the Protected Disclosures Act and to ensure that organisations have measures in place to act on reports from their staff and make sure that whistle-blowers don’t suffer as a result of their disclosures.

“A primary aim of the legislative framework that the Government put in place for Protected Disclosures in 2014 is to ensure that workers feel safe when speaking up.”