The General Secretary said the Civil Service was essentially a hierarchical structure where people do what they are told. Blair Horan called for clear guidelines to assist civil servants if they were asked to do something they felt uncomfortable about.
He said that the union has already been discussing a code of standards and behaviour with the Government, but it dealt mainly with issues of legality.
Mr Horan said it could be taken for granted that civil servants would abide by the law. However, additional guidelines were needed to cover situations where issues of propriety arise, so that a civil servant could say no.
He said that civil servants working in the constituency offices of ministers could be particularly exposed to this kind of potential difficulty and that guidelines could help to ensure that such difficulties did not arise.
Meanwhile, the Labour Party has called for an immediate independent external inquiry into the Department of Justice's involvement in the Molloy controversy.
According to party leader Ruairi Quinn, there are still unanswered questions about why officials in the Department sought a judge's phone number on behalf of Mr Molloy. The party believes such an inquiry would only take a matter of days.
