Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Justice Mahon and Mr. O’Neill for attending the committee today. I was taken aback by the first part of the opening statement and the discussion of interpersonal complaints.

From his answers to the Chair's questions, the scope of Mr. Justice Mahon's office seems to be very narrow unless things are defined as to what is and is not a complaint. He said it is about introducing new amendments for the office. We deal with all the ombudsmen here and the European Ombudsman. In that context, Mr. Justice Mahon's office does not seem to have a broad scope. If somebody from the Defence Forces comes to the office to make a complaint, it seems that the office goes down its list and finds that the complaint is not on the list. I know where Mr. Justice Mahon was getting the point that the information is not getting back to the Defence Forces. The information might not be on the list, but there is a commonsense way to approach this.

Mr. Justice Mahon mentioned the timeframe. I am interested in sections 4 and 6. There are different timeframes across the ombudsmen's offices, which is ludicrous. An individual or a group has 12 months to make a complaint. As Mr. Justice Mahon said, sometimes people do not react straight away and need to sit back and see whether there is a possibility of resolving the matter internally within the relevant Defence Forces unit. However, 12 months is a very short period if we are talking about serious allegations. There might also be a gap because the member might be on tour for six months and he or she does not know what the reception is going to be when he or she comes back.