Complainant

Respondent

Anonymised Parties

A retired civil servant

A Government Department

Act

Complaint Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under Schedule 2 of the Protected Disclosures Act, 2014

CA-00016307-001

13/12/2017

The complainant asserts he has been penalised by the respondent arising from its failure to refer his protected disclosure to independent investigation; the respondent denies the claim.

The complainant outlined that this complaint was referred to the Workplace Relations Commission on the 13th December 2017. The complainant made a protected disclosure to the respondent Minister on the 20th July 2017 and she has not addressed the issues raised. He followed up on the disclosure for some months. The complainant outlined that the respondent failed to respond appropriately, or at all, to his disclosure. This was a breach of the Protected Disclosures Act, the respondent’s protected disclosure policy and S.I. 464/2015. The complainant states that this respondent’s failure to act on his protected disclosure gave his former employer, another Department, the “green light” to continue various punitive acts against him.

The complainant outlined that he sought for the issues raised in his protected disclosure to be addressed by an independent investigator and that all instances of punitive acts be addressed. The failure to investigate the protected disclosure constitutes unfair treatment and penalisation.

The complainant submitted that as a retired worker, he was entitled to bring a penalisation claim pursuant to section 12. He said that his main point is that the respondent continued to rely on the investigation of his original complaint from October 2015, an investigation the complainant was dissatisfied with.

The respondent outlined that the complainant made a protected disclosure to a Minister in October 2015. This matter was referred to an independent external investigation, which concluded in May 2016. The complainant made a second protected disclosure to a Minister on the 2nd November 2016 and raised this matter with a Minister of State. He then made the protected disclosure of July 2017. The respondent submits that the Protected Disclosure Act does not afford the complainant any right to have a matter investigated. It submits that the issues he raised have been fully and independently investigated. It submits that the complainant has not suffered any detriment.

The complainant was an inspector, employed by a Government Department and worked under the auspices of a public body. The complainant retired as a civil servant on the 9th January 2017. During of his employment, the complainant raised concerns about how the public body carried out its inspection functions. These concerns were the subject of several protected disclosures, including one to the respondent in this complaint of the 20th July 2017.

Where there is a disclosure of relevant wrongdoing, the Protected Disclosures Act provides important protections to employees, workers and third parties, justiciable in the Courts or before the Workplace Relations Commission. The Act is clear that complaints of a contravention of section 12 can be brought to the Workplace Relations Commission. Schedule 2 provides that employees can refer a complaint to the Workplace Relations Commission against their employer where they have been penalised for making a protected disclosure. The complainant was not an employee of the respondent at the time of his July 2017 disclosure and at any point afterwards. He had retired some months previously, having worked for a different Department. He cannot, therefore, be penalised within the ambit of section 12.

For completeness, the Workplace Relations Commission does not have a general policing role in relation to compliance with the Protected Disclosures Act; its role is to adjudicate on complaints from employees of unfair dismissal or penalisation arising from a protected disclosure. The complainant does not point to any adverse treatment at the hands of this respondent. The fact that the complainant is not satisfied with what this respondent did with the 20th July 2017 disclosure is not grounds to find this complaint to be well founded. It follows that the complaint is not well founded.

CA-00016307-001

I find that the complaint of penalisation made pursuant to the Protected Disclosures Act is not well founded.

Protected Disclosures Act / section 12

Protection of employees