Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I just want to support Deputy Funchion's amendment. We have enough reason to worry given the Government has set its face against the appeals of survivors and people in this House to not exclude people. It has not provided an explanation for that because we all know the explanation, it would appear, is about penny-pinching on real justice and redress. That is in line with the sort of other issues we have been talking about in the Dáil over the last few days where the State has done everything it can to cover itself against what it sees as financial exposure, regardless of the consequence for vulnerable people or people who have been wronged by the State. We have seen it tragically played out again with this legislation.

It is telling that we say there is going to be a deciding officer who is independent but the definition of independence in this particular role is somebody who is willing to disagree with the Government if necessary, who has staff and so on and would, if necessary, disagree with the Minister and take the Minister on. We are dealing with a group of people who have been wronged by the State, who have very considerable concerns and are deeply unhappy with the redress that has been established because it excludes and because it is so minimal. The very least you would expect is that the deciding officer would have the capacity to be a bit independent. Critical to that, he or she should at least have the opportunity to recruit some of his or her own people, people the deciding officer feels are experts or particularly suited to doing the jobs necessary. That is not a negative commentary on staff that might come from the Minister's Department because I am sure many of those are well-suited and well-qualified but the deciding officer, if he or she is independent, should have the right to decide what sort of staff resources he or she needs, including what kind of people and what kind of qualifications they might have. This clearly sets out that it is really the Minister who is going to decide on the officers and the staffing of the independent deciding officer's office. The two things do not add up. It is not independence if the Minister is making all the appointments. It is a reasonable amendment Deputy Funchion is putting forward but I suspect that, as the Minister has ignored the appeals on the bigger and more substantive issue, he is probably going to ignore these appeals too.

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