Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank all Deputies who contributed. It is important not only that the House would endorse the nomination but that it would be an all-party nomination because it strengthens the hand of the incoming Ombudsman if this is the case. I am taken by the point made by Deputies Fleming and Boyd Barrett about the process. I wanted the process to be different. I am absolutely open to a different process and I invite the committee to examine it, perhaps based on the Welsh model. My problem is that many of the 35 people who applied are in significant public roles in the country and they might not be too keen on putting their names in the public domain. I am sure there must be a way around this. The committee might consider it. During the debate on the Ombudsman (Amendment) Act I stated I would prefer the Ombudsman to be an officer of the Parliament rather than of the Executive. This is why we wanted a committee to which the Ombudsman would report directly and not through a Department of State.

I will leave the appointment of the Secretary General here to another debate. I will introduce legislation on it as I promised. We have some work to do. Next week we will have an opportunity to debate freedom of information. I have a different view to Deputy Boyd Barrett on commercial semi-State bodies. Like me he supports the commercial semi-State bodies and I do not want them to be disadvantaged. We need to have a system which does not disadvantage them with regard to non-semi-State companies in their operation.

Deputy McDonald will be completely shocked because I very strongly agree with almost everything she stated. I attended the Open Government Partnership forum in London for two days last week. It was an exciting place to be. We might have a delegation at the next plenary session. There are now 61 countries involved and we are examining everything with regard to how open data works. I issued a statement that I want Ireland to be a leader on the default position being that all data should be in the public domain and not that one must run after it. Freedom of information legislation should be moot over time because data should be automatically available. Technical issues arise but this is where we should be going. Very experienced people spoke about the practicalities of whistleblowing and freedom of information.

It would be helpful if we all collectively engaged in that process.

With regard to Deputy Boyd Barrett's point on the expansion of the role, we have, as the Deputy rightly acknowledged, expanded the role of the Ombudsman. We have tripled the umbrella, if one likes, and I will need to talk to the new Ombudsman about how that is to be encompassed. There will be other roles, as has been pointed out - for example, the legislation that will be introduced to deal with the auditing of the party leader's allowance, although it will not be called that any longer; rather, it will be called the parliamentary support allowance. There will be additional work. It is similar to the position with the NTMA, which seems to get a whole lot of additional work bolted onto it, in that the poor Ombudsman seems to be getting a whole lot of work bolted onto the role as well. We need to structure that work.

In conclusion, there is a job of work to be done by the Joint Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions. Perhaps we need to sit down with the Ombudsman, once the President receives our nomination and, presumably, acts upon it, to work out how we can construct a robust office of the Ombudsman and of the Information Commissioner in light of the Ombudsman's Welsh experience and the view he has of Ireland. I want to be as supportive of that as I can be.

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