Whistle blowers - Information must be used

WE have a great capacity to be outraged, to be angry and sad about terrible wrongs committed in our society. But we get over it quickly.

After the publication of the Murphy Report, there was a palpable sense of shame and anger across the country. Yet, no one has been charged over anything in the report. Three years after the banking collapse we are still, increasingly less patiently, waiting for anyone to face our courts. There is a pattern to all of this and it’s time to set the bar a bit higher and demand that the laws we have are enforced.

In that context, yesterday’s news that whistle blower legislation is to be expedited is welcome. This, of course, will mean nothing unless there is a determination to use the information in securing convictions and showing that behaviour like that revealed in Rostrevor Nursing Home is completely unacceptable and that there will be serious repercussions for wrongdoers.