Ms Bernadette McNally:

I thank Deputy Ó Snodaigh for the question and I am delighted to be able to answer. As regards resources, like every other public body we have been squeezed. We are down about 16% on the staffing that was sanctioned for us in 2006. However, we accept that is a requirement in these times and like every other public body we look at how we can provide our service more efficiently. Despite the fact that we have doubled the number of bodies over which the Ombudsman has jurisdiction, we did not seek additional resources, we simply asked that we would maintain our existing resources and not receive further cuts. As I speak we continue to negotiate. We have a very good relationship with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and it has very much honoured the commitment to date.

The service we provide to members of the public is good but it could be better. In terms of waiting times, we close 60% of our Ombudsman cases within three months, 77% within six months and 90% within one year. That is good but there is definitely room for improvement. The cases that are slow tend to be very complex ones that might involve a death in the health system. Such cases take a lot of time. Planning cases, unfortunately, also take a significant amount of time. We have weekly operational meetings to try to improve the efficiency and get faster response times within existing resources.

We are a multifunctional office and there are many benefits to that in terms of moving resources around. If we see a little bit of a lull in the Office of the Information Commissioner, OIC, activity we move staff across to the Ombudsman and vice versa. Our biggest resource expenditure is on the Office of the Information Commissioner side. We are happy to say that when we approached the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform earlier this year for additional resources we got sanction for that. The recruitment process takes time but we hope to recruit six additional staff for the OIC in the next six months.