Gráinne Madden – Protected Disclosures – “Whistleblowing”

Well, protected disclosure is the legal terminology that we use in Ireland.

It's used in legislation.

There's a definition, which I'm sure we'll get to, of protected disclosure.

What we'd more commonly refer to it is whistleblowing.

That's the way most people would refer to it.

It's interesting to look at people's understanding of whistleblowing because I found for many years through my teaching and I find when I'm delivering training to people that sometimes people think of whistleblowing only as going outside the organisation.

They see it as, you know, that's when you go to the newspapers or you go to primetime or you go to a regulator.

But actually, that's external whistleblowing.

But you can also have internal whistleblowing where you go to somebody more senior than yourself in an organisation that you believe can do something about the problem.

And, you know, if you think about it.

we should all be encouraging people to go internally and tell us about the problem internally.

They shouldn't need to go outside the organisation.

And in fact, the Protected Dislosures Act, the legislation this comes under, does actually incentivise workers to report internally.

Now, it doesn't stop them from going externally, but it does make it much easier for them to get the protections under the law if they go internally.

I think that's sensible.

Most organisations actually are best placed to address a problem most effectively, quickly and cheaply.

You were saying

a lot of it should be happening internally, but surely companies should have good communication channels.

Well, protected disclosure is the legal terminology that we use in Ireland.

It's used in legislation.

There's a definition, which I'm sure we'll get to, of protected disclosure.

What we'd more commonly refer to it is whistleblowing.

That's the way most people would refer to it.

It's interesting to look at people's understanding of whistleblowing because I found for many years through my teaching and I find when I'm delivering training to people that sometimes people think of whistleblowing only as going outside the organisation.

They see it as, you know, that's when you go to the newspapers or you go to primetime or you go to a regulator.

But actually, that's external whistleblowing.

But you can also have internal whistleblowing where you go to somebody more senior than yourself in an organisation that you believe can do something about the problem.

And, you know, if you think about it.

we should all be encouraging people to go internally and tell us about the problem internally.

They shouldn't need to go outside the organisation.

And in fact, the Protected Dislosures Act, the legislation this comes under, does actually incentivise workers to report internally.

Now, it doesn't stop them from going externally, but it does make it much easier for them to get the protections under the law if they go internally.

I think that's sensible.

Most organisations actually are best placed to address a problem most effectively, quickly and cheaply.

You were saying

a lot of it should be happening internally, but surely companies should have good communication channels.