Dr. Niall Muldoon:

I thank Senator O'Reilly. On the limit of our statutory obligations, we can make recommendations. The essence of the role of an ombudsman around the world is to create moral suasion. That is the essence of how we work. The reason we do not go for binding recommendations is that as soon as we do that type of an investigation, people lawyer up and it becomes a different type of process and we do not get the change that we have seen. As I said, we engaged for three years with this local authority. The final year of the engagement was about progress being made internally without anybody having to know about it and conversations that led to these recommendations being accepted.

As I mentioned, the Ombudsman for Children was set up in 2002 and it commenced operations in 2004. We have not yet had to do this but if we find ourselves in a situation where we need to do it, we will write to the Secretary General or the Minister of the Department - in this case the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage - advising it that we intend to bring a report to the Oireachtas. That tends to focus the mind. As far as I know, that has happened only once under my predecessor. Departments then tend to follow through and help to create satisfaction on our part. That would be my intention. Ultimately, if we end up bringing a report to the Oireachtas there will be a moral, but not statutory, obligation on the Oireachtas to finish implementing the recommendations. I would expect that if it gets to the stage where a Minister is being told by an ombudsman that the nation and the house of Government are not happy with the way in which recommendations are being followed through, that would be a strong argument for getting it done. As I said, that is very much a final solution.