Mr. Ger Deering:

Absolutely. I am reminded of a card that arrived in our office from somebody who recently used our service. It read, "I can breathe a little easier now." It gives an indication that behind the numbers to which the Deputy has just referred, there are many personal stories of people with grave difficulty and problems. We would be very happy to get the message out. One matter we discussed with our colleagues in other ombudsman offices recently was the possibility of a clinic in Leinster House. In a previous life of mine in the National Employment Rights Authority, we provided something similar. We came into Leinster House and it was very useful to interact with Oireachtas Members because, as the Deputy pointed out, they are very often the people to whom these people with difficulties will turn. The more people here understand our role, particularly now that we have changed our processes, the more we could inform Members of that. We would be happy to co-operate with anything along those lines or any other ideas the committee may have. We accept that we need to increase our outreach; we just feel we need to do so in a phased way.