Fine Gael has said it will support a campaign by Transparency International to provide across the board legal protection for whistleblowers in the Republic.
Fine Gael's Leo Varadkar said today the party would publish a bill providing protection for whistleblowers during the current Dail term.
"Having been involved with the FÁS issue we do as a party understand the important role that whistleblowers play," said Mr Varadkar at a public meeting hosted by Transparency International.
Eugene McErlean, a former internal auditor at AIB who turned whistleblower, said he was unprepared for the personalised attacks against him when he questioned what was happening at the bank.
"The isolation is the main problem that I experienced. You are on your own against this massive organisation, in fact two organisations- the bank and the regulator. They have lawyers and you are on your own," he said.
"You are made to feel isolated and somehow you are an outsider and you lose all credibility when you are outside," said Mr McErlean, who told an Oireachtas committee last year that AIB had threatened him that he would be personally liable for any losses arising from any concerns raised about trading in AIB shares.
Irish Times journalist Fintan O'Toole said the absence of a whistleblower culture in Ireland had had catastrophic consequences for society and was one of the fundamental reasons that the country was now in a financial hole.
"We need to breach the culture of silence in society , which has been extraordinarily corrosive," said Mr O'Toole.
Journalist Justine McCarthy, who is author of a book investigating sexual abuse in the world of swimming in Ireland, said she felt like a fraud sitting on the podium talking about whistleblowers when so many of them were sitting in the audience.
She said she had no doubt that more children would have been abused if these people in the audience had not become whistleblowers.
"I'm one of the people who helped get the inquiry into swimming," said Bart Nolan, a parent who campaigned for action against sexual abuse within swimming for 30 years. He said he had also experienced "whistleblower reprisal".
"I'm probably the first person to have been banned from three swimming pools," he told the audience.
Transparency International chief executive John Devitt said the NGO called on all political parties to support a simple, clear, across the board law to protect whistleblowers.
A report published by Transparency International shows that a bill proposing overarching whistleblower protection was tabled in 1999. It was later dropped due to "political complexities" and the Government chose to introduce legislation no a sectoral basis, which only protects employees in some professions and sectors.
There is no whistleblower protection in the Financial Regulator's office.
Mr Devitt said Transparency International planned to set up an legal and advocacy advice centre in Dublin with EU funding later this year. He said this advice centre would help whistleblowers to bring information into the public domain.