Courses / Module

Whistleblowing Law is high on the agenda for organisations due to the recent transposition of the EU Whistleblowing Directive into national law. This now requires that protection is afforded to a wide range of individuals, including, employees, contractors, agency staff, volunteers, non-executive members, shareholders, and trainees, to name but a few. Further, all organisations of over 250 members of staff must establish, operate, and maintain formal whistleblowing procedures (this will apply to all organisations of over 50 members of staff from December 2021). Whistleblowers must be protected from retaliation and are afforded robust protections under the legislation.

Transparency Legal Advice Centre (TLAC) is Ireland's only independent law centre specialising in providing free legal advice to anyone who wishes to disclose wrongdoing as provided for under Irish Law. It also provides advice and support to reporting persons where they allege that they have been retaliated against for having made a protected disclosure. More information on TLAC can be found here: https://transparency.ie/helpline/TLAC

The aim of this module is to provide students with a unique opportunity to obtain practical experience in applying whistleblowing law to real-life situations. The course will be run in conjunction with TLAC. The module will have three elements: (i) Lectures on the substantive law; (ii) Lectures on legal skills, in particular, research and legal opinion writing; (iii) Practical application of the substantive law and use of the legal skills required to assist whistleblowers in making their disclosures and/or advice on legal protections.

Any aspect of this module may be changed in any given academic year, subject to the discretion of the module lecturer.