If you reported something wrong at work — illegal activity, health and safety risks, financial misconduct, cover-ups — and you were punished for it, Irish law provides some of the strongest whistleblower protection in Europe. Penalising a worker for making a protected disclosure is unlawful.
The Protected Disclosures Act 2014 (amended in 2022 to implement the EU Whistleblowing Directive) protects workers who make disclosures of relevant wrongdoing in good faith. Protected disclosures cover criminal offences, health and safety risks, environmental damage, financial misconduct, miscarriages of justice, and breaches of legal obligations.
Penalisation — which includes dismissal, demotion, transfer, reduction in hours, harassment, or any other form of retaliation — is unlawful. Workers who are penalised can bring a claim to the WRC with no service requirement. The burden of proof is reversed: once you show you made a protected disclosure, your employer must prove any adverse treatment was unrelated to it.
Keep a record of what you reported, when, to whom, and in what form. Then keep a careful record of any change in your treatment that followed — the timing between your disclosure and any adverse action is often the most powerful evidence in a whistleblower claim.
Niall had worked in a financial services firm in Dublin for eight years with a consistent performance record. When he identified what appeared to be systematic overcharging of clients, he raised it first with his line manager, then formally with the compliance team, and finally with HR.
Six weeks later, Niall was placed on a performance improvement plan citing communication and accuracy issues that had never previously been raised. The targets on the PIP were, in his solicitor's assessment, objectively unachievable in the timeframe set.
His solicitor invoked the Protected Disclosures Act. The burden of proof shifted to the employer to demonstrate that the PIP was unconnected to the disclosure. The employer struggled to produce any documentation of performance concerns predating the disclosure.
The case settled within three months of proceedings being issued.
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