Joanna Tuffy (Labour)

The whole point of such a role is that one person acts as one's advocate. The Garda Síochána Complaints Board has a chairperson but given that we have decided to set up a new institution we should go the whole way and have a single person as ombudsman.

I have been trying to find a copy of Senator Maurice Hayes's 1995 report. I have made the point before that the Ombudsman Act came into being in the UK in 1998 and was endorsed by the Patten Commission. The Minister seems to suggest that the Patten Commission gave rise to the creation of the ombudsman in the North. It endorsed it but did not actually provide for it.

As Senator Maurice Hayes has said the Bill goes some way to dealing with the issues but it does not go far enough. It is a fudge.