Brendan Ryan (Labour)

I thought Mrs. Lynch was an extraordinarily warm and Christian woman. Her family's circumstances and the way in which she dealt with a terrible trauma in her life has been an example to everybody. She stated she had no problem regarding the prisoner in question receiving whatever he needed if he was suffering in any way. She said she was not seeking vengeance and spoke solely about the understandable fear victims of such an individual would experience if he was released suddenly without preparation or warning. This valid point, which was raised with great dignity by a courageous woman, needs to be addressed.

All Members should learn a careful lesson from this case, namely, that irrespective of how efficient one's office staff are, one must still take responsibility for writing letters. I do not want to turn a dignified woman's case into a political football but it is time the political system addressed the issue of representations. No representation should be entertained until after a case has been dealt with by the Ombudsman. For this reason, we should resource the Ombudsman to deal efficiently with all delays and complaints and only those cases which cannot be resolved should be the subject of political representations. I have held this view for 25 years.

There is something fundamentally wrong with the attitude of the CAO. Having worked in the third level system, I have been aware of the CAO since it was established and I note a change in its attitude. The office was always focused on students and initially provided a service that most public bodies were incapable of delivering. It was a model of how to deliver a service to the public because it was efficient, accessible, user friendly and tried hard to ensure it produced a large volume of information. Its focus, even as a single body, was on providing a service.

The tone of comments made by representatives of the CAO in the past 48 hours is the reverse of that approach. Apart from the banks — we know what we think of them — service providers do not ask their customers to hold on and be patient. Senator Quinn would have been out of business after six months if he had told his customers he would get around to dealing with them in a minute. Essentially, this is what the CSO has told students for the past 48 hours. A public body which offers one a financial incentive to apply online because it saves it money should not tell customers to be patient or else pay a tenner. It is not good enough. The CAO's attitude appears to have changed. While I accept it is an independent body, the Minister for Education and Science has a responsibility to ensure this problem never occurs again.

In the course of yesterday's interesting debate on rendition and Ireland's complicity or tolerance of it——