Protected Disclosures in the Department of the Taoiseach

The Department of the Taoiseach, through its Management Board and supported by its Corporate Services Division, is committed to fostering an appropriate environment for addressing concerns and supporting its workers in ‘speaking-up’ relating to potential wrongdoing in the workplace and to providing the necessary support for workers who raise genuine concerns.

A protected disclosure is a disclosure of information which, in the reasonable belief of a worker of the Department of the Taoiseach, tends to show one or more relevant wrongdoings that came to the attention of the worker in a work-related context and is disclosed in the manner prescribed in the Protected Disclosures Act.

Under the Protected Disclosures Act, workers of the Department of the Taoiseach include employees, contractors, consultants, agency workers, trainees, job applicants, interns and/or volunteers. The Act covers current and former workers of the Department of the Taoiseach.

The Department of the Taoiseach has procedures in place for protected disclosures that have been developed in line with the Protected Disclosures Act 2014.

These procedures detail:

• how a worker of the Department of the Taoiseach can make a disclosure;
• what happens when a disclosure is made; and
• what the Department does to protect the worker.

Section 22 of the Protected Disclosures Act requires that annual reports be published in relation to disclosures received by the Department from its workers.

There were no protected disclosures received between the years 2014 and 2023 inclusive.