The High Court has rejected George McLoughlin’s judicial review challenge to the handling and closure of his fourth protected disclosure, finding that the report repeated earlier complaints and contained no meaningful new information about relevant wrongdoing.
Mr Justice Nolan ruled that the Protected Disclosures Commissioner acted lawfully in sending the report to the Secretary General of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, and that the Department acted lawfully when it designated Pat Phelan to assess it and close the procedure. The court refused the requested orders of certiorari setting aside those decisions.
Mr McLoughlin, a former labour inspector who retired in 2017, made three protected disclosures between 2015 and 2017 about workplace inspections and the handling of his earlier reports. In March 2023, he sent a further report to then Minister Simon Coveney. He argued that it raised continuing wrongdoing and that the earlier reports had not been properly investigated. He also challenged its referral to the Department, alleging that this compromised confidentiality and fair procedures.
The Commissioner’s office said it could not identify an appropriate prescribed person and selected the Department’s Secretary General as a suitable recipient, citing the Department’s responsibilities and capacity to provide feedback and follow-up. The Secretary General then designated Mr Phelan, the Department’s officer for protected disclosures. Mr Phelan closed the report as repetitive after an initial assessment. An independent external review later concluded that the report had been correctly processed, that the designation was appropriate and that closure was justified.
The judge held that the legislation did not require separate handling arrangements for internal and external reports. He found no basis to conclude that the Commissioner’s referral was irrational or breached natural justice. He also found that the Minister’s office forwarded the report to the Department, which promptly sent it to the Commissioner without examining or investigating it.
On the closure decision, the court concluded that the 2023 report substantially repeated matters in the earlier disclosures. Public reports and commentary cited by Mr McLoughlin did not amount to new information for this purpose. The judge also accepted that procedures concerning the earlier reports had been concluded and rejected the argument that Mr Phelan had to investigate that question before closing the new report.
The court further rejected a late claim that the Department had misreported the 2017 disclosure in a statutory report, finding it was not part of the pleaded case and did not establish a basis for judicial review. The ruling addressed the lawfulness of the decisions under review; it was not an appeal on the merits of the underlying workplace-inspection complaints.