Dáil debates

Tuesday, 2 December 2008

Ombudsman (Amendment) Bill 2008: Second Stage

 

5:00 pm

Photo of Richard BrutonRichard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

I welcome this Bill, which has been long anticipated. Over the years in which the Ombudsman has been in action, there has been a quiet revolution in the attitude within the public service to responding to needs and complaints. This is a welcome development although there are still cases — these are the ones that command headlines — in which people's needs seem to have been trampled upon. It is very important that the Office of the Ombudsman exists and that we strengthen its powers. There has been great progress since the appointment of the Ombudsman.

A number of elements of this Bill are to be welcomed. I welcome the general recommendations that can now be given by the Ombudsman. The existing power, which is essentially to provide an adverse report to the Dáil, is very limited. It is a long stop and is not likely to be used in respect of an individual agency. It is important that general recommendations can be made by the Office of the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman has been gaining considerable experience in dealing with issues of complaint and dissatisfaction. There is no doubt that the lessons being learned in her work could apply in many areas. I suspect that some of those lessons could even be applied in areas that are not considered to be within their scope, such as to clinical issues in the area of health, in respect of which the lack of a satisfactory way of dealing with complaints is not only a frequent cause of considerable disquiet but also of litigation at a later stage.

It is welcome that the Ombudsman has the capacity to require legal cases to be stated. I welcome the fact the Bill envisages that bodies under the remit of the Office of the Ombudsman will have systems for dealing with complaints promptly and that there will be a statutory power to achieve this. One could well ask why the Bill does not go a step further, for example, by giving the Ombudsman's recommendations and guidelines for bodies the legal force of a code of practice. Thus, if accepted by the body concerned, the guidelines would have legal force. Such codes of practice are now commonplace among financial regulators, including the Financial Regulator. Such codes of practice allow a regulator or ombudsman to extend the boundaries over time. This sort of growth, which would have the force of law, would be beneficial. I am interested in hearing the Minister of State's response to that idea.

Perhaps we need to examine dispute mechanisms other than the traditional ones in the public service. Perhaps the Ombudsman should be given the power to recommend mediation to a body rather than adopting the rather cumbersome approach of investigating each case and making an ultimate decision. The Minister might consider giving to the Ombudsman, as an additional option in her armoury, the flexibility to ask a body with a difficulty to proceed to mediation.

A continuing cause of unease is the very long list of bodies excluded from the Ombudsman's remit. I am surprised that regulatory boards are excluded. It is hard to understand why regulators who make decisions about institutions and their behaviour would not themselves be subject to the services of the Ombudsman. They deal with complaints and cases put to them by members of the public and the opportunity for maladministration clearly exists in the way a regulator might deal with such an issue. The basis for these exclusions is not clear and I would like to hear the Minister restate why he believes bodies with a commercial mandate should be excluded. Many bodies with commercial mandates are excluded, such as Dublin Bus, the ESB, CIE and Bord Gáis and their regulators. Can the Minister justify why he believes this should continue to be the case? There is little reason for so doing. One reason that might be offered is that some of these companies compete with private operators who would not similarly be overseen by the Ombudsman. It would be difficult to present a credible commercial case that cited the right of appeal to an Ombudsman as a burden on a commercial State body. I would like to hear the Minister justify this position.

The Ombudsman has rightly spoken about the interplay between her office and our work. Ultimately the Oireachtas is the body to which she reports. She made the point that in recent times we have created hundreds of new agencies which have not been subject to proper parliamentary scrutiny. Many on this side of the House would agree. The democratic model we must promote is that of strong parliamentary accountability, with right of appeal to the Ombudsman in cases of failings in individual cases. We must revisit this matter of the accountability to this House of many agencies. Many Members on this side of the House are driven crazy when they deal with bodies such as the Health Service Executive and try to get responses from it. Some of us were amused to hear that Cabinet Ministers find such bodies equally impenetrable when they try to get answers or discover what is happening internally in some of the agencies which we set up, all unwitting.

Perhaps parliamentary reform is not within the Minister of State's mandate but it must be addressed. The Minister of State did not explain why he did not accept the recommendation made to include asylum and immigration matters within the remit of the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman presented a case for that seemed credible because there is such precedent in other jurisdictions. The Minister of State did not indicate the reasons for his response.

Significant public service reform is coming on to the agenda and is long overdue. There must be a serious quality assurance revolution within the public service. The Ombudsman pointed out that our endeavours must be to drive better systems of public service delivery and I believe these will be accelerated in future times. We must also be cognisant of the important values that underpin public service in the treatment of individuals. These include fairness, equality, integrity and recognition of the common good, values that got squeezed in Ireland in recent times by the economic model we pursued. As we embrace public service reform it is important to ensure that those important values remain core to the public service.

The Ombudsman cited cases of people losing right of access to waiver schemes in the privatisation of certain services. That is a fundamental part of a fair system of service charges which has been lost. As we reform public services, one of the considerable challenges we face is ensuring that stakeholders, namely the users of public services, have an enhanced role. We must see that reform does not become a top-down, HSE-style driven efficiency. The model we must adopt is one that makes agencies accountable for the delivery of performance. The agreements agencies enter into must involve a greater role for stakeholders. Why should stakeholders not be able to make choices? Why should schools not offer choices? That is the brief of the Minister of State at the Department of Education and Science, Deputy Haughey. Why should schools not be in a position to present choices to parents? In an enhanced design people might be able to design websites and teaching might involve something new. Why do we not consider after-school clubs as a way of dealing with challenges in our schools? Why are those choices not presented to parents in a systematic way? Why should we not give more authority to schools and to principals to develop options for enhancing their schools? In that way they would become more accountable to their stakeholders. The notion of top-down, one size fits all control has been a bad feature of our public service model and we must reform it.

The Minister of State, Deputy Haughey, will agree with me that when it comes to the really tough issues like the drugs problem, school drop outs and anti-social behaviour, the State models are extremely poor. We must enlist the support of communities if they are to have any impact. Our systems are often poorly attuned. We must to develop a system where it is standard that agencies funded by public money offer choices to the stakeholders. Ideally, people will be able to choose the type of service and the most appropriate service for their needs. On a broader level, there must be choices about the direction a particular agency should take in serving local community needs. We have not established that in our system and, as a result, communities get frustrated with many agencies that are seen to be insensitive to local needs. The great challenge we now face is that, unfortunately, we are re-modelling public services against a tough background and a lack of resources. We must recognise that the crucial issue is to empower those who serve. Hospitals would be run in a considerably better way if patients had a stronger stake and the ability to command the way resources are spent. That would be a great advance. I see that the Acting Chairman is getting ready——

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