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Dáil Éireann DÁIL ÉIREANN AN COMHCHOISTE UM FHORMHAOIRSIÚ AR AN TSEIRBHÍS PHOIBLÍ AGUS ACHAINÍOCHA JOINT COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC SERVICE OVERSIGHT AND PETITIONS Dé Céadaoin, 10 Deireadh Fómhair 2012 Wednesday, 10 October 2012 The Joint Committee met at 16.00 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett, Senator Jimmy Harte, Deputy Michael Conaghan, Senator Tony Mulcahy, Deputy Charles Flanagan, Senator Trevor Ó Clochartaigh, Deputy Michael Healy-Rae, Senator Susan O’Keeffe. Deputy Michael McCarthy, Deputy Peter Mathews, Deputy Derek Nolan, Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh, Deputy John Paul Phelan, DEPUTY PEADAR TÓIBÍN IN THE CHAIR. 1 OMBUDSMAN (AMENDMENT) BILL 2008: DISCUSSION WITH THE OMBUDSMAN Ombudsman (Amendment) Bill 2008: Discussion with the Ombudsman Chairman: For the sake of the broadcasting and recording services, I request that members ensure their mobile telephones are turned off completely. Apologies have been received from Deputy Seán Ó Fearghaíl. The first part of today’s meeting is to discuss with the Ombudsman the Ombudsman (Amend- ment) Bill 2008 in the committee’s capacity as the Joint Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions. The second part of the meeting will consider the Office of the Ombudsman An- nual Report 2011 in the committee’s capacity as the Joint Sub-Committee on the Ombudsman. I welcome the Ombudsman, Ms Emily O’Reilly, and her team, Ms Bernie McNally, direc- tor, Office of the Ombudsman, and Mr. Tom Morgan, senior investigator, Office of the Ombuds- man. The committee appreciates them taking time out again to discuss these issues. By virtue of section 17(2)(l) of the Defamation Act 2009, witnesses are protected by abso- lute privilege in respect of their evidence to this committee. If witnesses are directed by this committee to cease giving evidence on a particular matter and they continue to do so, they are entitled, thereafter, only to a qualified privilege in respect of their evidence. Witnesses are di- rected that only evidence connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given and they are asked to respect the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they should not criticise or make charges against any person, persons or entity by name, or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. Finally, members are reminded of the long-standing ruling of the Chair to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or an official by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. Ms Emily O’Reilly: I thank the committee for giving me this further opportunity to discuss the Ombudsman (Amendment) Bill and my 2011 annual report. I would like to begin by impressing upon the committee how important I consider it that this Bill is passed as soon as possible. I wish further to impress upon the committee the extent to which the people of this State have been badly served by the extraordinary, if not unprec- edented, delay in extending the remit of the Office of the Ombudsman to public bodies that are central to their lives and well-being. It is now 27 years and five months since a proposal emanated from the then Department of the Public Service inviting the Office of the Ombudsman to submit proposals for an extension of remit, following a suggestion from the first Ombudsman, the late Mr. Michael Mills. It is now 25 years and nine months since the office, delayed by a legal wrangle over remit, submitted a comprehensive set of proposals for the amendment of the 1980 Ombudsman Act. Earlier this year, in a letter to the new Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, I described what transpired over the next quarter of a century as a farce which must end. I was pleased the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Howlin, and his Department agreed with my views and their subsequent actions, plus a high level of engagement by my of- fice with them, has now led to this day and, hopefully, to the enactment of this amended Act before the end of this month. It is not perfect, but if I share with the committee some brief part 2 JOINT COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC SERVICE OVERSIGHT AND PETITIONS of that 27 year history, I hope it will agree that the public interest will best be served through the passage of this Bill now. It will then be a matter for the Oireachtas, particularly for the members of this critical committee, to ensure the legislation’s imperfections are remedied as speedily as possible whether through further regulation or through the passage of other legisla- tion from other Departments which may bring independent oversight to bodies not currently under remit or not envisaged to be within remit through this amended Act. The expectations raised in 1987 when the office issued comprehensive proposals to Govern- ment quickly disappeared. A meeting called by the Department in February 1987 was cancelled and nothing more was heard about the Bill until a full seven years later, in 1994, when it ap- peared on the programme for Government of the incoming coalition. In January 1995, the De- partment of Finance again wrote to the office citing the Government’s policy statement, which declared: “A Government of Renewal envisages an extension of the powers and remit of the Office and discussions on the proposed extension are on-going.” In its letter, the Department stated it was, “anxious to undertake the necessary work”. What followed was a considerable amount of interaction between the office and the Department, rounds of consultation with De- partments and offices and the drafting of a memorandum for Government. In June 1996 when the then Ombudsman, the late Mr. Kevin Murphy, published his 1995 annual report, he noted that “good progress was made during the year and preparation of a draft Bill is now underway”. One year later, in April 1997, when Mr. Murphy launched his 1996 an- nual report, a now rather exasperated Ombudsman highlighted the delays in getting the amend- ment Bill passed and called for the schedules to be amended in the immediate term. Another year and another annual report later in April 1998, when Mr. Murphy launched his 1997 annual report, the Ombudsman, with hope restored, noted positively that the preparation of the Bill was reactivated in 1997. This positive trajectory ran into January 1999 when a press release by the then Minister of State indicated the Government had accepted proposals to in- troduce an Ombudsman amendment Bill. The press release went so far as to list the additional public bodies which would be coming under the Ombudsman. As the winter of 1999 approached, the Minister for State responded to a letter from a very frustrated Ombudsman stating rather cryptically that he was “not without hope” that the Bill would be published by the end of the year. Alas, by the time Mr. Murphy published his final an- nual report in April 2003, he could say nothing positive about a possible amendment Bill being enacted and he made clear his disappointment at the lack of real progress throughout his tenure. My first annual report as Ombudsman, which was published in April 2004, chimed yet another positive note as I referred to yet another commitment from Government to publish an amendment Bill by the end of 2004 and to have it speedily enacted. On my very first week in office, I was told by the then Minister for Finance that “the amendment Bill will be through in the next three months”. I followed up my annual report remarks with a letter to the Minister for Finance, in November 2004, setting out the history of delays and calling for urgent action. The Minister wrote back and said he was “hopeful”, which I read as being slightly more encourag- ing than the response of the Minister of State in 1999 who characterised himself as being “not without hope”, that the Bill would be published by the following Easter. What, of course, was extraordinary about this was that the respective Ministers had virtually the absolute power to get the Bill through if the will and interest existed to so do. The years 2005, 2006 and 2007 saw hopes being raised and dashed. Throughout all of this time, I was attempting to manage my own office, readying it for the extension of remit and dealing with the understandable confusion and uncertainty of staff when, year after year, absolutely nothing happened. 3 OMBUDSMAN (AMENDMENT) BILL 2008: DISCUSSION WITH THE OMBUDSMAN I made a direct personal intervention with a new Minister for Finance, yet again urging action. My intervention seemed to get something rolling and in September 2007, the then Tánaiste and Minister for Finance, Deputy Cowen, wrote to me to say that the Department of Finance was “actively working” on an amendment Bill. In July 2008, the First Stage of the amendment Bill finally came before the Dail but progress after this was painfully slow. By 2010, it had reached Report and Final Stages but was not enacted by the time the Government fell. The tone set in my 2010 annual report, which I published in June 2011, was a mixture of total frustration at past failures which I felt justified in describing as “at the very least an embar- rassment to all concerned”, and cautious optimism at the current Government’s commitment in its new programme for a national government to extend my office’s remit to all publicly funded bodies. Then earlier this year, I wrote to the Department about the appalling torpor and lack of real political will around the extension of the Act in the manner I described at the start of these remarks.
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