On 12 November, the Taoiseach told this House that legal advice states a Minister cannot read protected disclosures. That claim has caused real alarm throughout the country because if a Minister cannot read protected disclosures, the Minister cannot verify whether the Minister is being misled. It is an extraordinary position for this Government to have in a system that has repeatedly accused, attacked and retaliated against whistleblowers. A recent case shows that danger exactly. For decades, a cash-based duty exchange system has operated in the Irish Prison Service, not secretly but quite openly. A Workplace Relations Commission ruling has confirmed it, RTÉ "Prime Time Investigates" has exposed it, a senior retired governor called it universal and it is on the record of this House from 1996, meaning we have known about it here for over 30 years. Yet, when the matter reached the State legal apparatus of the Chief State Solicitor's office, that office told a statutory tribunal that the system did not exist and argued the point relentlessly that if it did exist, it would be fraudulent. We are left with only two possibilities, either the State participated and believes in a fraudulent case or the Chief State Solicitor's office misled a statutory body and perverted accountability. Both scenarios undermine our rule of law and raise the same question, namely, who is the State legal system protecting? Is it protecting the people's interest, the public's interest or is it saving the Government and State from embarrassment?

Part of a wider pattern is that whistleblowers who raised the issue, and others, have been sidelined and dismissed. Legal advice presented to Ministers appears to contain disclosures rather than deal with the ongoing wrongdoings. The Committee of Public Accounts has already confirmed that the system is obstructed. On page 10 of a report from January 2022, the committee states that the terms of reference for the protected disclosure investigation were drawn too narrowly and that suspected criminal activity could not even be referred to An Garda Síochána. That is not a flaw in the system; to my mind, it is a design in the system. It was reinforced in writing by the Taoiseach in August 2019 when he was Leader of the Opposition. A Minister told him a whistleblower's disclosure had been handled through legal advice and treated as a normal personnel matter, and he was asked to stand down. As I understand it, and if he was here today he could confirm it, he did stand down. That whistleblower lost his career four months later and has been fighting for justice ever since.

I will put direct questions to the Government. Is the Government satisfied that the legal advice given to the Ministers on protected disclosures is accurate, lawful and compliant with the Act of the EU directive?

Thank you, Deputy.

Does the Minister stand over the Taoiseach's statement of 12 November?

We are committed as a Government to protecting whistleblowers. Work is ongoing at EU and national level to further strengthen those reports. The Deputy has a Private Members' motion tomorrow morning, I think, on this matter. We will get an opportunity to debate it in the round. We accept the motion tabled by Independent Deputies is well intentioned and seeks to increase protections for whistleblowers but, from an initial review, it appears to ignore many of the provisions that already exist in legislation to protect those individuals. It also contains a number of proposals which would have to be worked on in more detail and may have some unintended consequences too. We have set some of those concerns out in the countermotion, alongside our ongoing commitment to further review the legislation at both EU and national level. The role whistleblowers have is critically important and they deserve the protection of the State.

On the Deputy's contention that a Minister should have the opportunity to read protected disclosures, while I understand the intention, it is flawed. The political process needs to be separate from that. There is a clear process in relation to that. Every Minister gets a general report on protected disclosures, which is important too. There has to be an independent verifiable process for whistleblowers to be able to have the allegations or matters they have raised assessed in an independent way, separate from the line Minister, and where the whistleblower can feel it can be raised in safety and assessed with seriousness.

The Protected Disclosures Act 2014 is our national whistleblowers protection law. A major amendment to that Act was made in 2022. It was signed into law in July 2022 and commenced operation on 1 January. This is an area that we take seriously.

I look forward to the debate tomorrow morning in relation to the Independent Technical Group's motion, where the Deputy can put forward other matters relating to it. Whistleblowers in general have done this State a great service. They have raised matters that would not have come to the fore if we had not had the structures and processes in place to allow that to happen. A whistleblower should not find, in any way, shape or form, that their own situation is affected in a negative way simply because they have raised a protected disclosure that they feel is of great importance to the operation of their Department or agency or to behaviour within an agency or Department.

Legal ambiguity protects the powerful. Clarity and accountability protect the Republic. I will put the questions to the Minister again because he has not answered them. Is the Government satisfied that the legal advice given to Ministers on protected disclosures is accurate, lawful and compliant with both the EU Act and the Act in the Republic? Does the Minister stand over the statement, made by the Taoiseach on 12 November in this House on receiving protected disclosures under section 8, that Ministers cannot even read them? Will the Government commission an independent review of legal advice provided to Ministers in cases involving corruption, criminal conduct and the misuse of public funds? Will the Minister confirm whether the conduct of the Chief State Solicitor's office, in presenting a position that has now been proved false, will be thoroughly and fully investigated?

The Deputy asked whether we are satisfied with the legal advice we received which the Taoiseach read in this House. Of course we are. The Deputy has an opportunity tomorrow morning to raise specific points around his motion. As I said to him in my initial answer, this whole area is something that remains under review both at EU and national level. We want to make sure the process is fair and transparent and that protection is given to whistleblowers, which, in the main, it is. That is important. The Department of Finance will be taking this debate tomorrow. We look forward to the arguments that will be put forward in that regard. We are always open to looking at matters, whereby if there are improvements required that are legal, and we will do so. We look forward to the debate tomorrow morning.