Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks again to the committee for your invitation. It's a privilege to address you again.
I don't have much more to add to my earlier testimony to the committee. Perhaps I can remind the committee of some of the key features of the Irish legislation with which I'm most familiar and touch on some of the points raised at the last hearing.
The Irish legislation, the Protected Disclosures Act, was introduced in 2014. It replaced or sits alongside about 18 other pieces of legislation on the Irish statute book covering or protecting whistle-blowers. For the first time, it protects whistle-blowers in the public, private, and non-profit sectors.
Essentially all categories of worker with the exception of volunteers are protected, and they are protected against many different types of reprisal both formal and informal. They are protected against formal sanctions, which means dismissal or disciplinary action for having made a protected disclosure. Then their employers are vicariously liable for any mistreatments a whistle-blower might suffer as a consequence of making a protected disclosure. The employer is thus responsible for ensuring that a whistle-blower is not subjected to blame or discrimination or any other mistreatment during the course of their work.
They also have direct access to the courts. One of the most important features of the Irish legislation is the ability of a whistle-blower to bring, within 21 days of being served with notice of dismissal, an injunction or interim relief application to one of the lower courts, the circuit courts in Ireland. That means that a person making a protected disclosure can stop their employer from dismissing them within 21 days.
This is, as I said, one of the most important features, and it's important because, were they not able to avail themselves of this protection, they would likely have to wait two years for their case to be heard in the Workplace Relations Commission and suffer the financial consequences of that and the psychological and practical consequences arising from being out of work for up to two years.
The system has yet to really vet in. We're still waiting for courts to hear many of the cases, but we know that three-quarters of the cases brought to the circuit court for interim relief have been successful so far. We're confident that it has brought or will bring about an attitudinal change towards whistle-blowing in Ireland. We're already seeing the majority of employers in the private sector stating their commitments to protecting whistle-blowers. Some 90% of employers, according to one of our latest surveys, say they are supportive of whistle-blowing, even if the disclosure involves the release of confidential information or might damage the reputation of the employer.
The real test of this legislation is, as is the case with any legislation, in the way it's implemented. We're currently working with the government. We have support from the Department of Justice and Equality in Ireland and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform to roll out a new program called “integrity of work”, which I'm more than happy to talk about further. It commits employers to ensuring that their employees do not suffer as a consequence of reporting and that action is taken in response to their report.
This is a new program, which we're launching just this year. We've already gained commitment from the Irish police service, the Irish Prison Service, the Department of Justice and Equality, a number of charities, the Environmental Protection Agency.... Around 30 organizations are signed up so far. We're confident that it can help move the discussion forward, away from the legislation itself to the way the legislation is implemented in practice.
I don't have any firm recommendations to make about the Canadian legislation, other than perhaps to echo Mark Worth's concerns about allowing or affording an executive agency the opportunity to prevent workers from availing themselves of their legal rights and access to the courts.
Again I would repeat my comment in the last session to the effect that any legislation should be simple, it should be clear, and it should cover all workers across the economy, not just public sector workers.