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Publication duties
An Irish employer with 50 or more employees must run internal reporting channels. Public bodies must, at any size. Some Annex-listed sectors also have no threshold. The page names the recipient and the report routes. It states the 7-day acknowledgement and the 3-month feedback. Public bodies also publish a report on disclosures by 31 March.
A reference note from Dan Malone, who builds software products.
The rule
“an employer with 50 or more employees shall, in accordance with this section and section 6A, establish, maintain and operate internal reporting channels and procedures for the making of such reports and for follow-up”
The facts
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Start date | The Protected Disclosures (Amendment) Act 2022 came into operation on 1 January 2023. See S.I. 510/2022, article 2. Source |
| Who must run a channel | An employer with 50 or more employees must establish, maintain and operate internal reporting channels and procedures. See section 8, inserting section 6(3). Source |
| Who has no threshold | The 50-employee threshold does not apply to a public body. It also does not apply to an employer in scope of the Union acts. Those acts are listed in Parts I.B and II of the Annex. See section 8, inserting section 6(4). Source |
| Mid-size employers | The duty applied from 17 December 2023 for employers with 50 to 249 employees. Public bodies and Annex-listed entities had no such deferral. See section 8, inserting section 6(5). Source |
| Acknowledge in 7 days | The employer must acknowledge a report in writing not more than 7 days after receipt. See section 9, inserting section 6A(1)(b). Source |
| Feedback in 3 months | Feedback is due within 3 months of the acknowledgement. Further feedback follows every 3 months on written request. See section 9, inserting sections 6A(1)(e) and 6A(1)(f). Source |
| Information for workers | The employer must give workers clear and easily accessible information on internal procedures, anonymous reports, and the external route. See section 9, inserting section 6A(1)(g). Source |
| Report formats | Channels must take reports in writing or orally, or both. Oral means telephone or other voice messaging. A physical meeting follows on request. See section 9, inserting section 6A(2). Source |
| Annual publication date | Each public body, prescribed person and the Commissioner publishes a report by 31 March each year. The report goes on its website. See section 30, substituting section 22(5). Source |
| Figures to the Minister | The same bodies send the underlying figures to the Minister not later than 1 March each year. See section 30, substituting section 22(1). Source |
| Offence for no channel | Failure to establish, maintain and operate internal channels is an offence. On indictment the fine is not more than €250,000. See section 24, inserting sections 14A(1)(e) and 14A(3)(b). Source |
| Summary fine level | A class A fine means a fine not exceeding €5,000. See Fines Act 2010, section 3. Source |
The artefact
What goes wrong
/01
The 31 March report is late or absent, and the gap stays visible on the page for a year
/02
The report is buried inside a large annual report PDF, with no link from the disclosures page
/03
The page names a person who has left the organisation, so reports reach a dead mailbox
/04
Only an email address is given, so the telephone and meeting routes set out in the Act are missing
/05
The page still describes the 2014 procedure and never mentions the 2022 changes or the Commissioner
/06
The reporting form is a download-only PDF, unreadable on a phone and unusable with a screen reader
/07
The channel is a vendor portal, and the link breaks after a rebrand or a contract change
/08
The confidentiality wording promises anonymity that the reporting process cannot deliver, which misleads the person who reports.
/09
A year with no reports is left out instead of stated as zero
/10
The page sits three clicks deep with no route from the footer or the governance section
Who supplies this
Irish programme for employers on speak-up procedures; also runs the Speak Up Helpline that reporters are often pointed to.
https://transparency.ie/integrity-work
Outsourced whistleblowing hotline and case management; the kind of third-party operator the Act allows an employer to authorise.
https://www.safecall.co.uk/
EU whistleblowing channel software with multilingual intake, case logs and deadline tracking for the 7-day and 3-month steps.
https://whistlelink.com/
EU-hosted reporting channel with anonymous two-way messaging and audit trails for annual reporting figures.
https://whistleblowersoftware.com/en
The statutory external channel. Its contact details and process are what an internal page must point workers to.
https://www.opdc.ie/
Send the duty, the deadline and where it has to sit. What comes back is a written scope for the page, or a straight answer that you do not need one.
Send the briefLast checked 2026-09-01 · Published 2026-09-01
This page is reference material, not legal advice. Your advisor owns what applies to you.