Strengthening Whistleblower Protections, Enforcement and Accountability in Public Administration: Motion [Private Members] Dail Éireann — 2025-11-26 ============================================================ Richard O'Donoghue (II), Limerick County Before I start off, I thank John Campbell, Mark Nolan, Emma Corrigan, my colleagues here in Independent Ireland and, most of all, the whistleblowers who gave us the details and information on this to make sure that we could bring a Private Members' Bill to the Government on which it is after delivering 20 minutes of waffle outside of what we were talking about. I want to make quite clear what we are looking for is a review of the statutory protections afforded to civil servants and - this is where the Deputies from that side of the House have to listen - a clear mechanism for professional accountability when officials act outside of their remit, not within their remit. Therefore, if they are doing things right, give them 100% protection. If they are doing things wrong, they are breaking the law and you should not give them protection. If they are knowingly breaking the law, you should not protect them by using public funds to defend ultra vires actions, except where a genuine good-faith error can be demonstrated. This House has a duty to ensure that State power is exercised lawfully and transparently and that when it is abused, responsibility does not fall on the taxpayer or on an innocent family, but on those who misused that power. We can go across all the Civil Service and there are civil servants doing brilliant work. They are doing good work, they are doing responsible work and they are helping. We have a minority that have abused their power, but they also were in positions that they also abused the power on people that were in job descriptions under them to follow it on and keep this thing going. This is a responsibility of the persons that started this and I am not asking the Minister to break the law. A review of the submission of the EU directive shows that 50% of all submissions came from Ireland and the Government is not listening. I have had people from that side of the House stand up here and say we are right. I will watch how every one of them votes this evening. I am asking the Government to have an open vote in recognition of these whistleblowers here today. I am asking every Government Member for a vote of conscience. That is something that is within the remit of Government. How many of them will sleep tonight if they vote under our whip system today on an amendment that the Government is bringing to this? It is wrong. They know it is wrong to protect people in the Civil Service who are doing wrong outside of their remit. This is what we are asking the Government to address. Every one of the colleagues here on the Opposition benches spoke on this today. There were people who had tears in their eyes from what they were telling the House was happening, yet the Government brought 20 minutes of reading that script to the table. Jessica Sheedy, in 2018, died in UHL and only for the whistleblowers, that same management would be in place today and we would not be correcting the past. We have a new management there. It is trying its best to repair the damage that was done. A girl died under someone who should have never been allowed to operate in the first place because somebody withheld paperwork. That investigation has been going on since 2018 and now it has gone back to the UK to show them the full paperwork that was not disclosed. The Government wants to protect people under the whistleblowers law and say they are being protected, but they are not. I know her family, Ann and Jimmy. I was at their wedding, and the Government is here putting in an amendment to "protect" them. That is wrong. We have people in the Garda service who saw wrongdoing, and what does the Government do? It protects the people who have done wrong instead of rewarding those who are doing good and the people who are trying to improve to make sure that they are lawful and right. The Government is there to protect them. In all conscience, none of them would tell their children to keep doing wrong and we will protect them. I am asking the Government to withdraw its amendment. I am asking every Deputy in this House on the side of Government to withdraw it and do the right thing. I am not asking to put good civil servants at risk. I am asking the Government, by law, to bring the civil servants to justice and stop the rot. Millions of euro have been spent in cover-ups because they are afraid of the law. What is wrong with putting your hands and saying you have done wrong? There will be people who make allegations and submissions to say there is wrong being done to them. It is within the law that if people wrongfully make allegations, those can be dealt with, and rightly so. People who bring false allegations need to be dealt with as well but the laws are there for that. However, there are no laws for what is happening here, from Tusla to the fire service and the county councils. I read about a case today that had been going on since 2019 where the judge made a statement on the case that there was no evidence from the local authority, yet it used and abused the privilege of taxpayers' money and of the Government to bring this matter to court knowing that it had not the evidence and wanted to get a criminal conviction against somebody because someone else came up with some idea that they wanted to bring it to court. That is wrong. If somebody does something wrong, they are brought to court and held accountable. That is Meath County Council. I have it in Limerick County Council. I have it in Cork. I have six or seven county councils at the moment. We have shown the cases that came to court but should never have gone to court. Now there are High Court challenges. I am going to put it on the record here today that there are people within the Civil Service who are knowingly doing wrong, and when the Government sees such cases going to the High Court and being lost, the Government can sit there in shame. The Government has a chance now to do right by having a vote of conscience - an open vote by Government. The Taoiseach walked in here a minute ago and I believe he walked out again. I respect that because there were ten minutes to go before Leaders' Questions, but he is here. I am asking Government Members to look up at the Gallery and think of their children and families when they vote on this tonight and that they knowingly are protecting civil servants who are doing wrong. They need to protect and reward the ones who are doing right and to make sure that they bring those others before the law. The law of this country is the law and people are not above it. I am asking Government Members to hold these people accountable and reward those people who have gone through torture for their goodness, for bringing this and for all the efforts within their families as well. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-11-26/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:22+00:00 Sitting date: 2025-11-26