I thank Independent Ireland for bringing this forward. It is probably fair to say that most of us here grew up from childhood with a moral phrase repeated by our parents or guardians, "If you tell the truth, you will not get into trouble" and now we are here in the Chamber, dealing with the Protected Disclosure Act 2014, as amended in 2022 on foot of EU Directive No. 2019/1937. I most recently brought two constituent and professional colleague protected disclosures to the Chamber. PD 2025 No. 17 has been raised twice previously. Most definitely both issues are in the public interest and they have been made with a very strong evidence base, the second one being a child safeguarding and Garda vetting issue. I just want to point out that at this point all correct disclosure procedures have been followed by the reporting persons. Everything in the 86 pages of the 2022 Act has been followed but there has been no follow-up. We are past the three-month mark. In one case we are about to hit the six-month mark. There has been no follow up by the OPDC, An Garda Síochána, the HPRA, the HSE or the PSI. There is not supposed to be penalisation by employment but in the case of one person there is absolute penalisation in their employment status. In my opinion, the compellability piece is the missing piece. In closing, I note the comments by the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, yesterday on the Order of Business, that whistleblowers should not find "that their own situation is affected in a negative way". Unfortunately, that is not the reality. The Minister also said that he or the Government would be open to looking at improvements. Compellability and adhering to the strict timelines that are in the existing legislation is the starting point. In relation to those issues I would be very grateful to the Minister of State if there is some way of accelerating the matter that he can embark on.

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