Source: irishexaminer.com
Irelands approach to implementing the EU Directive on Whistleblowing EU Dir 2019/1937) has received attention in the media with two articles in the Irish Examiner Paper discussing the importance of robust protection and where the current draft proposals to reform the Irish whistleblower protection framework under the Protected Disclosures Act 2017 (PDA) may fall short.
Whistleblower law is silent on areas crying out for reform analyses the gaps in the previous legislation and the areas of concerns for the proposals currently under consideration stating:
“…the outline of his amendment bill designed to satisfy this transposition of EU law, it was silent on those areas crying out for reform.
Instead, it appears to be an attempt to kibosh many sound existing provisions, introduce new retrograde ones, and silence future whistleblowing.”
The opinion piece also highlights the EU Directives “Non-Regression clause” (Article 25) which was supposed to stop EU Member States, which all must transpose the Directive before the 17 December 2021, lowering standards during reforms and three key ways it is feared new Amendment Bill does just that.
Whistleblowers Bill will put burden of proof onto the employer written by Michael McGrath is the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform and a Fianna Fáil TD for Cork South Central discusses his remit and role to strengthen the current whistleblowing framework and highlights how the proposed Amendment Bill will strengthen the PDA legislation, including highlighting the importance of a reversed burden of evidential proof in whistleblowing retaliation cases which has been introduced by the Directive to resolves the disparity in arms between employers and whistleblowers.
The proposed Amendment Bill and further information can be found here.