WHISTLEBLOWING advice

Ireland is launching Europe's first 24-hour whistleblower hot-line. Transparency International's 'Speak Up' Helpline will give round the clock advice to would-be whistleblowers. Ombudsman Emily O'Reilly and Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin are to do the honours on Thursday evening at Wood Quay. It's a step in the right direction but we seem to have skipped a few other steps altogether.
A replacement hasn't been appointed yet for the job of receiving information from Garda whistleblowers (Read here). Then of course there's the problem of what to do with the information a whistleblower gives up. After all there's a bit of row going on about whether or not the likes of the Garda Fraud Squad have enough staff or whether it's question of needing new legislation. The slow pace of the Anglo Irish investigation, among others, and Judge Peter Kelly's negative comments about it has added to the growing clamour about our failure to hold white collar criminals to account (Read Here).