Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 25 June 2014

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions

Decisions on Public Petitions Received

4:05 pm

Photo of Pádraig Mac LochlainnPádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal North East, Sinn Fein)
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The Bill is running behind schedule. We understand it will be quite a while before Report Stage is taken in the Dáil. If the Joint Committee on Justice, Equality and Defence believes that the issues raised, which it will examine in detail, are not addressed, it will notify the Minister to consider tabling an amendment on Report Stage. That is agreed.

Petition No. P00011/14 is from Mr. Martin Morris. He is seeking an investigation of medical treatment in Waterford Regional Hospital, the Medical Centre in Kilkenny, Cork University Hospital and also of the Medical Council of Ireland. The committee has agreed the petition is inadmissible under Standing Orders 165B(1) and 165C(h) in that it relates to an individual case. It is the role of the Ombudsman or the office of the relevant sectoral ombudsman to examine individual cases. The committee's job is to look at policy gaps in the public service, consider criticism and the need for change among other issues. We cannot deal with individual cases and therefore the petition is deemed inadmissible.

Petition No. P00016/14 is from Mr. Finn McCool. He is requesting legislation to include particular songs in the Eurovision contest. This petition is deemed inadmissible under Standing Order 165C(1)(g), which states that a petition is admissible unless it is frivolous, vexatious or otherwise constitutes an abuse of the petitions system. We have closed down the petition as we believe it fits within that category.