Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 23 April 2013
Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform
Estimates for Public Services 2013
Vote 11 - Public Expenditure and Reform (Revised)
Vote 12 - Superannuation and Retired Allowances (Revised)
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (Revised)
Vote 14 - State Laboratory (Revised)
Vote 15 - Secret Service (Revised)
Vote 16 - Valuation Office (Revised)
Vote 17 - Public Appointments Service (Revised)
Vote 18 - Shared Services (Revised)
Vote 19 - Office of the Ombudsman (Revised)
2:25 pm
Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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Not only has the office been given a significant range of new powers and a new range of bodies to oversee, but it now has been given a direct portal of reporting into the Dáil through the Joint Committee on Investigations, Oversight and Petitions. In the past, there have been situations where reports of the Ombudsman were not acted upon or did not even get a platform to be debated. That has given the Ombudsman's office a new status in recent times and it is an important one.
I should also state that the Ombudsman's office worked closely with my office in the drafting and advancing of that legislation and an interesting initiative was taken in that an officer of the Office of the Ombudsman was seconded to my Department to work on the legislation until it was enacted.