Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I want to deal with the general principle. I understand why the Senator is using this legislation to address an issue it is not designed to address. There are enormous difficulties in regulation. The Senator is an expert on that area and I readily acknowledge that. One could not state objectively, if there is an aviation regulator who determines on balance an increase in landing fees at Dublin Airport, or a taxi regulator determining what taxi charges should be, that it could possibly be appropriate for the Ombudsman to state that it is an appropriate or an inappropriate fee or charge. It would be an impossible position for the Ombudsman.

It is a fair point that maybe we need to re-look at our regulators and whether they have been up to the job, but that is a different argument for a different time. This House is capable, through its committees, of calling in any of these regulators and getting explanations of their practice etc.

On the notion that one would make the unfortunate Ombudsman the final court of appeal for every decision, where the Competition Authority makes a determination on a merger it could not be sustained objectively that the Ombudsman has the right of appeal.

Objectively, this very significant expansion of the role of the Ombudsman to cover all categories where there is a direct interface with the public and agencies of the State should be welcomed. If there are lacunas in what we have done, we have the power to add on at a later stage. As we will also give a proactive role to a committee of the House to keep the matter under constant review, we are not waiting another number of years for a Minister to focus on it.

Regarding the specific question asked, any body not listed as exempt is included. Therefore, in the specific case of the State Examination Commission, it is included. Any other body that the Senator can think of which is not on the exempt list is included. This gets to the heart of the Senator's question. The old idea was that one listed the bodies that were included. My view is that every body is included except those that are exempt. It might look as if the Minister is exempting many bodies but in fact I am narrowing down the exemptions considerably. It is a different way of looking at it. I only exempted those bodies for which a coherent and logical case existed and I did that in close dialogue with the Ombudsman herself and her office.