Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This is the reality. I think we need to state specifically that recognised advocacy organisations or public representatives can represent people. I think it is in the interests of the appeals office and the Department that this would be a recognised reality.

I have found from going to appeals in person, or sending a staff member in person, that we can relax in the presumption that we have a reasonably good idea of the criteria of the appeals officer. We understand how they work and we know they are independent. We can meet the person we are representing 20 minutes beforehand and get them relaxed by saying that the appeals officer is fair-minded, is not here on the behalf of the Department and is a friend. Some people are more hyper than others. As we sit there, I might have to put out my hand and say, "Hang on a second now". I might have to explain what is not relevant in case they go into all sorts of things that are not relevant to the case or germane to the law.

I suppose I am making two points. The first point is that it is vital that public representatives have a specific and clear right to represent. I will come back to that in a minute. The second point is that if we revert to calls, we have to offer people the choice. The Department might say that it can offer an online hearing in six weeks or an in-person hearing in nine or 12 weeks - so be it. The choice as to which is the preference should not rest with the Department. There was a very interesting Irish-language case in which Judge Hardiman went into the fact that the State puts quite a burden on the public and therefore the State cannot complain when the public puts a bit of a burden on the State in terms of providing services. That case involved services through Irish, but in this case we are talking about providing services to people to give them the best chance of making their case. As the Chair has said, we do a lot of our business online via email and so on. In a lot of other cases, I make a judgment call every week and say to staff, "Abair leo teacht chuig an gclinic" or "Tell them to come to the clinic". I will explain why I do that. The vast majority of these people may be able to read and write, but there are a number who cannot. Literacy skills are on two levels. Literacy skills in terms of official jargon, and literacy skills in terms of being able to read a newspaper or Facebook, are two different things. What exactly does it mean? In a lot of cases I find it is easier to explain these matters in person. One might need one meeting and subsequently do a lot of it online or by correspondence afterwards.

It is easier to go through it and explain the situation. It is, in many cases, easier for them to explain the realities of life when they are face to face and relaxed and so on. This should be the most humane of humane systems. The Department is not up against the big and powerful in society but against the most vulnerable people in society. The system has to be user friendly. A public representative should be involved and the choice of preference should clearly lie with the applicants as to whether they want an oral hearing or an online hearing, taking into account that for physical and practical reasons, the online hearing might be quicker. It goes back to how dependent people are on advocacy. If people are well able to do it themselves, why not have an online meeting? However, if people are very dependent on an advocate and there is a need for a human reaction among three people, or four people if the deciding officer from the Department is present in the room, it is a judgment call that needs to rest with the applicant to ensure fair play. If that means extra work for the Department and extra staff, so be it. That is not going to break the bank. That is the way I see the situation. As I said, we must never forget that what we are doing is filling in what commercial people do for massive sums of money for everybody else .

I will make a final point. I accept it is two-sided. I accept that change is being driven by the legal profession and many other forces in society. Robert Putnam wrote a very interesting book about the fact that the number of barristers in America skyrocketed over the past 40 or 50 years. There is a somewhat similar situation here, which is fair enough. That is the law. However, if someone were to ask me what has been the biggest change in my time, I would reply that we are much less about judgment calls and much more about a legalistic approach to everything. That is just the way it is but the problem is it is often hard to write statute law in such a way as to meet all human conditions and situations. That is the problem. Somebody has to make a call. That is the problem. As we all find out when we try to do it, we think we have written a law that covers most eventualities and the next thing, somebody wanders in the door with a case no one ever thought of before. We are then left to ask what we do now.

Those are some comments and two specifics. There is a right for a representative to attend an appeal and a right to an advocacy group or solicitor. I accept that there must be a right. It would be different if people were going in to cause an obstruction. I believe the choice in respect of the type of hearing, taking time constraints into account, should be the choice of the applicant.