Ms Emily O'Reilly:

There was a general torpor regarding the Ombudsman Act. It was a series of stops and starts. A head of steam would build up around it and then they might come into conflict with a particular Department or public body or agency that did not want to be included and everything would grind to a halt again or they would say it was a busy schedule or this or that was happening. It never seemed important enough to keep it at the top of the pile. I am not a journalist anymore and, therefore, I cannot comment in as free a way as I might have done ten years ago regarding some of the other matters, and it would be wrong of me to do so.

It would probably be fair to say that there is a culture in regard to certain matters that are sensitive in Irish society around prisons, asylum and immigration. That culture is around not trusting anybody not intimately involved within the system to make or review decisions. There is a sense in which unless people are inside the Department and intimate with everything that goes on, that in a sense one cannot trust them to know enough to make the right decisions. I remember several years ago meeting someone in the Garda Síochána. We were talking about freedom of information and the extension of it to the Garda. That was another area where one was not going to go, although it has been proposed that freedom of information would be extended to the Garda. The conversation was along the lines of "over my dead body" will freedom of information ever be extended to the Garda. I said I am a reasonable individual and my office is a moderate and mature public service-minded body. We are not all going to go mad. This individual garda said to me that he trusted me but the concern was who might come after me. It is this idea of not allowing that sort of external scrutiny on things that the members of the Garda Síochána feel, rightly or wrongly, are very important to the security of the State or whatever, and not wanting a lay person to make decisions.

It is also a fundamental misunderstanding of what the Ombudsman does. I will not make a new decision but I will ensure that the processes that are in place in regard to asylum or naturalisation cases or prison complaints are done correctly, that nobody is cutting corners and that natural justice is being applied. If somebody decides that somebody should not come into the country that is fine, as long as the process involved has been done by the book. That is the issue. There is a fundamental misunderstanding of that. There must also be a questioning of the people who do have difficulties. It may be the case that a lot of their difficulties are sound and rational but they need to be articulated. Whatever about back in 1985 or 1987, the public now has a much greater expectation that if something is or is not being done, people would be told precisely the reason.