David Norris (Independent)

I also welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Seán Connick. He is a splendid man, as I know only too well from our membership of the Operation Transformation team of fat politicians which wiped the floor with the fat housewives and taxi drivers. That was one of the few good, positive political stories to emerge in the past decade. I compliment the Minister of State on his clear and disciplined approach to the entire project. Of course, he had the expert and, I am sure, invaluable advice of his spouse, although I do not imagine he required her expert advice to produce his speech, the delivery of which was clear and nicely analytical. I also appreciated the respect with which the Minister of State treated the House.

This is an interesting development and I took the trouble, unusually, of placing my name on the Order Paper in support of the Fine Gael Party motion. I did so for a variety of reasons and not, as Senator O'Toole stated, to pre-judge the case because that would be inappropriate. The Senator made a fair judgment and assessment of the entire issue. The primary reason I lent my support to the motion was that I am concerned we should establish a body such as the Office of the Ombudsman and then turn our face against the advice that emerges from it, which appears to have been the case.

Despite the pleasant language and effusive comments paid in the motion and by the Minister of State to the Office of the Ombudsman and this particular manifestation or incarnation of the Ombudsman, it is clear the implication of everything the Minister of State said is that a patently absurd decision was reached by the Ombudsman. Clear grounds are laid out that the scheme was deliberately limited in terms of time, the type of application required, tonnage and the requirement to produce records and the vessel's log to show it had been continuously active for a period of at least two years.

The Minister of State noted that the compensation figure of €245,570 recommended by the Ombudsman "was arrived at by using the methodology and rates used in the 2008 decommissioning scheme, a completely separate and unrelated scheme". It appears something is not quite spelled out in this sentence, namely, that this is an attempt to get around the problem and make an application which is a parallel of the 2008 decommissioning scheme, in other words, of trying to operate a method that would trigger exactly the same thing.