Safeguards for whistleblowers sought

Anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International (TI) has called on the Government to establish legal safeguards for employees who expose wrongdoing or corrupt practice in their places of work.

TI Ireland said today there was an overwhelming need for greater legal protections for whistleblowers following the spate of high-profile financial scandals in public and private sectors.

“The need for an overarching whistleblower law is staring the Government in the face, but it remains actively opposed,” chief executive of TI Ireland John Devitt claimed.

“Its response is all the more shocking after what has been exposed in our banking sector and the role fear and silence played in covering up the sexual abuse of children for decades,” he said.

“There is little if any protection for whistleblowers in the financial services and business sector, while whistleblower codes and guidance throughout the public service are virtually non-existent,” he said.

As part of a campaign for greater legal protections for whistleblowers, the agency plans to publish a study and draft legislation in January.

The study is understood to detail serious gaps in the Irish legal framework for whistleblowers, and to illustrate how not all employees were safe from retaliation if they reported wrongdoing.

Marking International Anti-Corruption Day, the organisation also called for Ireland’s ratification of the UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC), saying the Government remained one of the few signatories to the UN Convention not to have ratified and implemented the treaty.

“The UNCAC is to the prevention of corruption and promotion of democracy what the Kyoto Protocol is to climate change, yet Ireland is still dragging its heels. Ireland agreed to ratify this treaty in 2003, but almost seven years later we’re still waiting. It’s getting embarrassing”, Mr Devitt said.

An international survey, published by TI last month, indicated Ireland is moving toward increasingly low levels of corruption.

Ireland’s score had improved from 7.7 to 8 out of 10 since last year on the Corruption Perceptions Index, with a score close to 10 indicating extremely low levels of corruption, the survey found.