Brian Hayes (Fine Gael)

I second amendment No. 1. With the permission of the House I will speak on amendment No. 2. I welcome the Minister back to the House. We recently debated this matter and the observations made by the former Northern Ireland ombudsman, Senator Maurice Hayes, were useful in that context. The Minister said he would consider this amendment and we await his views.

It is important that we give the ombudsman, who will have a key role to play in terms of dealing with all these Defence Forces matters, a free hand. We should not in any way seek to limit the way in which his or her authority can lead to a better working environment for people within the Defence Forces.

The amendment tabled by Senator O'Meara and my amendment No. 6 make provision for this issue of the public interest to which she has referred. This is not a normal working environment, as I understand it. It is difficult for people to make complaints because of the structure of the Defence Forces and the top down approach, which is inevitable and necessary in terms of giving and taking orders. We must use this and the following amendments as a means to provide the ombudsman with a free hand to decide whether he or she wants to investigate of his or her own volition a matter of public interest. Such a provision would in no way diminish the existing structures within the Defence Forces but would, if anything, add to them.

It is essential that we provide the ombudsman with the free hand to which I have referred due to the difficulty of making complaints. I ask the Minister to reconsider this matter on which we had a useful Committee Stage discussion. Whether the formulation used is Fine Gael's or Senator O'Meara's is not of particular concern to me as long as we provide the ombudsman with the same powers we provide to the State Ombudsman and the Ombudsman for Children. We do not want to create circumstances like those outlined by Senator O'Meara in which the ombudsman will not be able to respond to a matter in the public domain due to an investigative programme. That would be wrong and serve to undermine the ombudsman and his or her office. It is not the start we want to give him or her.