Michael D'Arcy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will start with that point. It is good that we are looking at it from a different angle rather than the standard position as we have known it. I appreciate Senator Barrett's passion for what he wants done but I do not know that this is the correct vehicle. My concept for the office of the Ombudsman was that it was for the individual citizen to use against the arm of the State. The arm of the State is practically, as the Minister has just said, going to take in just about every body except those that are prescribed and exempt, which is good.

In the days of the first Ombudsman, Mr. Michael Mills, the office was new and alien to us. On so many occasions, however, individuals took a case to the Ombudsman and a determination was made and we need to remind ourselves that this is the primary purpose of the office. It is there so that the individual citizen can take on the apparatus of the State, which can be too strong, powerful and perhaps, too dominant.

We touched on the issue of the legislation being used to the advantage of a private company against a semi-State company. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that a private company could use the legislation in this way and this becomes an unintended consequence, namely, that the semi-State company is put at a commercial disadvantage. I do not think we want to create that circumstance, as the Minister said.