Under certain limited circumstances, employees have legal protection if they make disclosures about organisations for whom they work. These employees are commonly referred to as 'whistle blowers' and their activities have often received wide publicity in the media. (Such an example is if an employee believes that the company is in breach of its responsibilities in relation to the standards or quality of care provided to its service users and the employee disclosed this fact to a regulator, customers, the Garda, the media or indeed the company itself may disclose this fact out of concern for the service users or out of concern that that company would, for financial gain, attempt to 'cover this up' if asked to stop).
Employees, who blew the whistle on organisations, were often treated detrimentally by the employer or in some circumstances their employment was terminated. This discouraged employees from whistle blowing even where such action would be for the good of the public.
