Abstract

On 1 December 2021, just prior to the transposition deadline for Directive (EU) 2019/1937 on the protection of persons who report breaches of Union law (the ‘Whistleblowing Directive’), the Irish Supreme Court delivered a judgment that may have an impact on the Protected Disclosures (Amendment) Bill, the piece of legislation intended to be enacted in order to comply with the Whistleblowing Directive. The judgment noted that, while the Oireachtas (the Irish parliament) had envisaged that most complaints for which whistleblower protection would be sought would concern matters of public interest, the actual definition of ‘protected disclosure’ in the Protected Disclosures Act 2014 (the ‘2014 Act’) extends further than that and can cover complaints in the context of employment which are personal to the reporting person. While Ireland has missed the deadline and has yet to enact the Protected Disclosures (Amendment) Bill, one of the intended amendments has been changed since this judgment was delivered.