Proposed legislation to protect whistleblowers is be accelerated, Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn told the Dáil today.
The Minister, who was taking the Order of Business on the Government’s behalf, was responding to questions about alleged physical and verbal abuse of elderly residents of the Rostrevor nursing home in south Dublin.
"When we can bring it in, I am not in a position to say," he said.
He said it might be necessary to bring legislation sector by sector. “The alternative is to have an omnibus piece of legislation, which has proven to be very cumbersome," he added.
Mr Quinn said every member of the House shared the concern expressed about the allegations.
Fianna Fáil’s Eamon Ó Cuív said members of the Dáil had listened with horror to the unfolding details. “When you hear about people crying out in fear, about an elderly man being kicked in the floor by those who were meant to look after him, we all feel sickened and angered," he said.
Much of the coverage of the issue related to the fear the staff had of referring it to the authorities, he said.
The Government, said Mr Ó Cuív, should consider if there was a need for a short-term amendment to the health acts to ensure that health workers in all sectors felt protected if they were whistleblowers.
Sinn Féin’s Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin said people were rightly appalled by the allegations of abuse. He and Joe Higgins of the Socialist Party praised employees at the home who brought the abuse allegations to the notice of the authorities.