Ms Emily O'Reilly:

My colleague has been more involved than I have in dealing with the Minister, Deputy Howlin's Department, namely, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, on the Bill and will be able to fill in the Deputy in this regard. However, as Ombudsman, I appeared before the Joint Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions and spoke about the continued exclusion of asylum and immigration issues even from the amended Bill. It took decades for immigration issues to go through and I know the Department of Justice and Equality has plans for a new Bill or that such plans are on the stocks or somewhere else which will deal with many of these matters. At the time I told the Joint Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions that when this legislation was passed, its members should take a look at the oversight provisions to ascertain whether it was independent and whether it met the criteria they thought probably should be in place to ensure independent oversight. I told them that if it was not there, they would need to consider this point because I have stated many times that I am probably alone among ombudsmen in Europe in not having that particular area within my remit.

The Chairman might allow Mr. Rafferty to respond on the issue of freedom of information legislation.