Ms Emily O'Reilly:

Which, in itself, is telling. Deputy Boyd Barrett spoke of rights and resources and, of course, that is the issue with which everybody is wrestling at present. I am sure the Government, no more than anybody else, would love to give everybody the full expression of their rights, whether in relation to disability, education, housing or anything else, but there are limited resources. However, governments do make choices and I imagine that is the rows behind closed door going on about the budget are about what choices one makes.

I expressed concern about the mobility allowance. I raised an issue that it was illegal and the response was that it was okay, they would get rid of it. It was not a great outcome. Recently, we became aware - I have spoken about this in the past couple of days - that up until now children with a diagnosis of ADHD or autism were being given the long-term illness card, which entitles one to certain services, medications, etc., and on which there is not an income limit. Then we received a complaint from somebody who stated that they had sought to have the card and it was denied to them, and they stated that applicants are getting the card in other areas. We looked at this and we saw that in most areas this card was virtually automatically being given out to the parents of children with this diagnosis. When we pointed this out to the Department and asked it to rationalise the system, it rationalised it by deciding that it would not give the long-term illness card to anybody else. Obviously, that was a fairly difficult response to deal with as well. On a personal human level, one thinks one is doing right and then discovers doing so has inflicted damage on others. I suppose, if I am comforting myself about it, I say that these are policy choices that are not made by me but, obviously, there were actions that were provoked by that. That is perhaps something the committee, if it so decides, could look into.

We also had the issue around so-called discretionary medical cards. One will have heard much talk anecdotally about this in the Oireachtas and elsewhere. It is elected representatives who find out what is really happening on the ground as opposed to what we are told is what is happening. Persons are not getting medical cards when before they had got them or their medical cards are being taken from them. We heard one set of statistics in the Dáil the other day. We heard another Deputy spoke of what he had been hearing and experiencing on the ground. Our experience in the Office of the Ombudsman is definitely that there are cutbacks, that there is rationing taking place. The rationing is not that the eligibility criteria have been changed but that now they are applied rigorously. Let us say, beforehand, if the income threshold was €300 and one was over that, they might look at the other elements of one's profile and the cost of one's illness, such as the amount of medication one had to take, or disability and then use their discretion and give one the card. That appears to have not completely gone, but certainly been curtailed. My point is - I am aware I am like a broken record on this - that the Government can choose to do what it chooses to do and it then takes its changes to the Oireachtas or the people, but what it should not do is dissemble or pretend that schemes have not changed when clearly they have.

They should be open with people because, as I am sure all members have experienced in their constituency work, the stress that is added to already-existing stress by not knowing or not understanding and the time that is wasted by people writing, ringing or e-mailing while trying to get explanations for this, are awful. Moreover, it does not have to be imposed on people; it is as simple as that. It very often is political spin, which is deeply unfair to people and that is the issue.

On clientelism, I think Deputy Harrington did not realise I was obliged to go through an election campaign to become European Ombudsman. Yes I did, and hats off to anyone who does it for a living because it was the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life. Obviously, the way in which the system operates in Ireland is that those who are not good local representatives will not stay to legislate. It is absolutely up to the Oireachtas to change the balance. As to how it should go about it, I do not know and it would not be right for me to do it. However, right from my early days in office, I always have appreciated how important are the people in these Houses for the work of my office. One of my first initiatives was to work on a piece of work with Oireachtas Members. I brought out a booklet to show cases that Oireachtas Members had brought directly to my office to encourage them because whatever about e-mail, regional visits and so on, the best communicators of what my office does are the Members of Parliament. However, it will be a while before the Irish political system changes to allow pure legislators or whatever.

As for anti-social behaviour, Deputy Boyd Barrett made an interesting point. Earlier this year, we had a discussion in the office about the number of complaints we were receiving with regard to that. Obviously, people are the victims of anti-social behaviour but the Deputy raised a very good point about people who effectively are told to sling their hook because of the powers of those particular officers. While I am unsure whether we have received such cases, were we to so do we obviously would consider what criteria these officials use to decide, as well as whether these people had a right to be heard, were they told about what they were doing or whether they had a right to state their case. The right to be heard is a fundamental human right and if they did not, that would be a serious breach. Obviously it can be difficult, given the nature of these issues, which can lead to huge tensions within a community, a street or between a few houses. However, it is interesting that the Deputy indicated that the official in question felt his powers were almost draconian. This may be something for my successor to investigate.

As we have discussed over recent meetings, the best thing this joint committee can do is to give real support to the Ombudsman. That does not mean blind allegiance to or agreement with me but the most I can hope for is that whatever decisions are made by the joint committee will come about as a result of a consensus and not along party political lines. In addition, I appreciate it sometimes can be hard because all the members have exceptionally busy lives. They are pulled this way and that and sometimes might not get much political credit for the work they do in this joint committee. However, it is really important that they see things through to the end and that they continue to exert pressure. I was very pleased when the Chairman recounted how the joint committee has brought in a Secretary General again and how it has persisted in pursuing the matter because it can be easy for such things to tail off and be lost. When the Ombudsman presents a report to the members present, it is an enormous deal for us because if it does not work here it has huge implications both for the particular investigation and in respect of the trickle-down effect. This is because public bodies watch what happens here and if they see there was a ho-hum result or if someone was not made accountable, then really the question will be why should they bother respecting our recommendations in future. This is the reason it is so important.