Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for a very informative discussion. I also thank all the Senators and Deputies who contributed. I am a new committee member and I am learning quite a bit about this space as we go, although I do not think we have not sat publicly.

Ms Justice Ring makes a very important and timely point about the membership and gender of the committee. That is something we need to reflect on. If we are to embrace the narrative in this discussion, I support addressing the name of the committee. It is important that people understand our job and what we are doing, as is agreed among everyone. It is a question for the committee to ask itself. However, in the event we are dealing with a report or something not yet dealt with by another committee, would the secretarial assistance or expertise to deal with the substance of those reports be available to us? One of the issues in getting public time is that we share a secretariat. These are probably internal issues that the witnesses may or may not want to comment on.

Are there any legacy reports that need to be dealt with? How far back might we need to go? Are there any ombudsman offices that do not deal with a particular committee? Is there a body of work we would naturally have to deal with as a starting point? We talked about the name of our committee and public understanding of the Ombudsman's office. I have always wondered, and this is a personal observation and question for the witnesses, if there is any merit in changing the Ombudsman's name to something simpler. It is an imported, Swedish name. It is gender neutral in Swedish and gender neutral in English, arguably. We also have An Coimisinéir Teanga. We have precedence for changing the name and I wonder is there any merit in that? I thank the witnesses. It has been very informative. I look forward to working on this committee and to the witnesses' response.