Seanad debates
Thursday, 10 April 2003
Appointment of Ombudsman and Information Commissioner: Motions.
Minister for Finance (Mr. McCreevy): I am very pleased to seek these resolutions recommending Ms Emily O'Reilly for appointment by the President as Ombudsman and Information Commissioner. There are certain rituals about debates of this kind in more leisurely times – a saunter through the legislative provisions under which the Ombudsman or Information Commissioner operates and a backward look at developments affecting the two offices since an appointment was last made. In some cases, that approach is worthwhile – where the territory is technical or where what the office holders do is not well known. In this case, I do not think it necessary because, as practical politicians and public representatives, one has ongoing contact with the operations of the Ombudsman and the Information Commissioner. In one's public capacity, one is also subject to regulation under which the Information Commissioner and his officers operate under the recent corpus of ethics, electoral and referendum legislation. The Ombudsman and the Information Commissioner have a clear reporting relationship with both Houses.
The motions are before the House, first, because Mr. Kevin Murphy has decided to retire from both offices and, second, because the legislation providing for these offices has specified that no one can be appointed as Ombudsman or Information Commissioner without this House and the Dáil passing resolutions recommending the person for appointment by the President. Underlying this uncommon appointment arrangement in both cases was a belief that parliamentarians and the public needed to be assured that the person appointed would not be in any way the creature of the Government of the day and would command wide support.
The appointments are for six years. They can be renewed but only by going through the same resolution and appointment procedure. Retirement is compulsory when the person appointed reaches 67 years. The starting date is 1 June next after the retirement of the current holder of both offices, Mr. Kevin Murphy.
Some time ago when Kevin Murphy mentioned that he would like to leave these two offices, I had to think about the qualities essential to doing the jobs well. It was quite easy to make out a list – a familiarity with public administration and knowledge of how it works; an ability to listen – sometimes with sympathy – and the ability to sense when the plausible just was not true or was deliberately incomplete; that unexpectedly scarce property, basic common sense; and skill in handling the media without being ruled by headlines. However, the fundamental quality had to be independence. This word is much bandied about and, in this context, usually taken to mean freedom from interference or influence by the Government of the day. That independence has to be expected from an Ombudsman or Information Commissioner. Independence has to mean more than this. It has to comprehend the ability to shake off the shackles of one's own strong feelings; to ignore the assumptions of the "crowd" from which one comes – be it party or professional group – and, should righting wrongs in either job require it, a willingness to upset them. Chilly contacts with erstwhile admirers are something any worthwhile Ombudsman or Information Commissioner must expect. Emily O'Reilly fits the bill admirably from that point of view.
When Kevin Murphy was appointed Ombudsman, there was a feeling in some quarters that it was asking too much of a top civil servant to go out and do strenuous battle with those who worked in the same corridors he had inhabited for most of a lifetime. Those who were in government with me when he was appointed did not share these views for we knew him as a man who called things as he saw them. There was no need for that particular leopard to change his spots because he had – we knew he had – that vital streak of real "without fear, without favour, without embarrassment" kind of independence. That quality was to be called upon in his dealings as Ombudsman and Information Commissioner with former colleagues whenever the interests of those he was chosen to serve required it.
I appreciate that Kevin Murphy has roughly two months to serve in both positions and, on past form, that time is unlikely to be spent coasting to retirement. He may think it slightly premature for me to pay tribute to him when he is still very much in harness. Nevertheless, I know that Senators will join me in putting on record our deep appreciation of the immense contribution he has made to the development of the office of the Ombudsman, for embedding into our system a desirable freedom of information culture and making both institutions user-friendly and, closer to home for us, for his energetic participation in regulatory institutions on ethics in Government, electoral practices and referenda, which made his retirement later than he wished.
One characteristic of his time as Ombudsman was that he saw beyond the individual cases which came before him, treating them as symptoms which could alert him to possible malaise in parts of the public administration. He distilled the lessons thus presented into prescriptions for what I might be forgiven for calling the body administrative. From this came his clear articulation of principles of good administration, which he expected public servants to measure up to and a check list of best practice which let public servants and their clients know what was to be expected. Settling Complaints, the guide he published to internal complaints systems, was both a guide to existing systems and a blueprint for setting them up.
There are many positions in public life where spelling out specific qualifications in statutes narrows down the field from which candidates can be picked. When it comes to these offices, that does not apply. I am sure most Senators can think of someone likely to have the essential qualifications I mentioned. Before the first Ombudsman was appointed, a civil servant put his finger on another practical requirement by warning that the person chosen to be Ombudsman had to be some "known". As he put it,"If when you mention the Ombudsman's name and the automatic response is 'Who?', then you have got it very, very wrong."
Emily O'Reilly is certainly well known. She has been one of the most widely read journalists of her generation in this country. She surfaces regularly on radio and television programmes. She has been hard-hitting, but those of us who have at times taken those painful hits will admit that she has been generally fair, if trenchant. She has never made her columns cheerleaders for the conventional or unthinking partners in fashionable denunciations of the unpopular.
Journalism is an occupation which has, no less than others, its quota of time-servers. It can offer a comfortable life provided one does not run foul of the libel laws, one's colleagues and present and prospective employers. One thread that has run through Emily O'Reilly's writings, whether in newspaper columns or the books she has written, is a willingness to say what she sees – even when it means annoying politicians, colleagues, and the power structures in the world of journalism. I do not always like what she writes. I often disagree with what she says. That may be a very good sign for the appointments for which she is being proposed.
The Government is not proposing Emily O'Reilly for these jobs because it expects her to give us an easy run. We are proposing her because we are convinced that she will do these jobs well. The personal credibility of whoever is appointed is vital to the regard in which these relatively young institutions of the State are held and indeed to their utility. Both are, in their own way, the safety valves of our administrative system and nobody – least of all a Government Minister or head of a public office – wants an ineffective safety valve, an Ombudsman or Information Commissioner who will not make a racket when something seems to be going wrong. The Government, and the leaders of the Opposition whom I consulted, are confident that Ms O'Reilly will not be silent and will not make noise when none is needed.
That said, there will in any such office-holder's term be moments when the sparks will fly between them and public servants and, let it be said, between them and Government Ministers. Between an Ombudsman and Ministers or public servants, there will always be a degree of tension. There has to be. They do different jobs and have different outlooks. The same is true of the Information Commissioner. What is important is that an Ombudsman or an Information Commissioner forces the decision-maker to look with fresh eyes at what her or his organisation has done or left undone. Often they agree but when they do not, the interaction between them ensures that all factors are considered, even if the weight each, in all honesty, attaches to them differs.
Mr. B. Hayes: I welcome the Minister for Finance, Deputy McCreevy, to the House. It is important that we debate these motions which the Government is putting before the House in the name of the Leader. That is why I asked last week that the Seanad be afforded a brief opportunity to debate the issue, not least because the two positions on the Order Paper, for appointment by the President, are very important new offices, established in recent years. They are still in an embryonic stage. I was not prepared simply to nod this through. I was not prepared to say nothing about the appointments and that is why I demanded a debate on the matter. I am grateful to the Leader for accepting the need for a debate, so that we can air our views.
The Minister is right in that Kevin Murphy has done a terrific job. One of the reasons he fitted the job description was his knowledge of the Civil Service and the public sector. I pay a warm tribute to Kevin Murphy for the dual functions he has performed as Information Commissioner and Ombudsman. He spoke up for the small man and woman. He was a thorn in the side of the Government and the Establishment. Those are the qualities we need in the person appointed to these two very important tasks. I register my thanks to Mr. Murphy and to the staff of his office for the terrific job they have done on behalf of us all.
It is important that the matter be debated in the House because of the new functions that have been given to the Office of the Ombudsman and Information Commissioner as a result of various legislation in recent years. This is the wrong way to make appointments, plucking people's names from the air which are then proposed by the Government. There were no advertisements concerning the appointment. No one was made aware that the position was to become available, so that other candidates could have put their names forward. The person appointed to these positions was simply a name plucked from the air. This is not a criticism of the individual, but that is the way the system is.
The system is wrong and it needs to be reformed. The idea, in a modern parliamentary sense, that parliamentarians cannot scrutinise, put questions to and test the proposed appointee is out of kilter with the system in other modern parliaments. High level appointments such as these, particularly where there is a role for the Opposition, should be made by way of Government resolution to a committee of the House, who would then interview various people who might be interested in the job.
Mr. B. Hayes: The Minister seems to be unduly tetchy about this matter. I wonder if he is giving the full information. The real involvement of the Opposition was not in place. I believe that to be wrong. There needs to be a greater role for the Opposition and all parliamentarians in this appointment. The person appointed, who is an eminent person and will do a very good job, would actually prefer that situation because in modern business people want to ensure that there is support for their appointment. The parliamentary scrutiny role is something that the Government should take on board.
Ms O'Rourke: I am glad to speak to this motion and, like other Members, to welcome the Minister to the House. There are two motions before us, one each for the positions of Ombudsman and Information Commissioner. While there could well be merit in what Senator Brian Hayes says about a new system of appointment, and it may happen in time, today we are dealing with the appointment of Ms Emily O'Reilly to these two conjoined positions.
I have just checked with the Minister for Finance and he tells me that he had a meeting in which he conversed with the leaders of the main parties in Opposition. When we hear that we take it as given. I am glad to hear it because I am quite sure that it should be done in the case of an appointment like this.
I would like to record a few of Ms O'Reilly's characteristics and to say that if she uses them in her new positions she will do great good for the citizens. I first came to know her in 1984 when she was a young reporter writing about the Anne Lovett case in Granard in County Longford, a very sad case. I was the Deputy at that time for Longford-Westmeath, having been elected in 1982. I met her and talked to her on that occasion. She was single-minded in pursuit of what she felt, which was that she should have the knowledge with which to write a very good story, which she subsequently did. It is interesting and revealing that recently, in her last recorded column in The Sunday Times, she wrote of the Anne Lovett case and the unfinished business which it left behind.
I subsequently had contact with her when she was going on the Siemens scholarship to Harvard. I was glad to give her a submission and a reference which she needed to apply for the scholarship. She later took that up, made a very good job of it and came back here and progressed up the journalistic ladder from one position to another, always bettering herself, to use an old-fashioned term. She did full justice to each positon that she embarked upon and she worked well. She has a great way with words, a marvellous facility with language.
The point I want to make is that if Ms O'Reilly continues to display the same single-mindedness which she has shown throughout her career she will do a very good job for the citizens who will have regular recourse to her. It is a very good characteristic in anyone to be single-minded and determined to get on and she has it in spades. She can bring those well-honed characteristics to bear on the two conjoined positions which she is now entering. I could elaborate on my encounters with her. I have no doubt about her suitability for the job in terms of her maturity and vast experience – not ignoring her midlands origins, to satisfy Senator Moylan. She is a very just person with long experience of life who started her journalistic career writing with great sensitivity about a very tragic circumstance.
I wish her good luck in the positions which she now takes up and I have no doubt that she will do Ireland a very great service in them. In so doing I recall that the Minister did not want to overshadow Kevin Murphy because he will remain in harness for two months and will do a lot of work yet. I knew him in the period of huge cuts in 1987-89 and he, too, was very fair and just, but he told you when to get off. That was very good also. I pay tribute to him and to the sterling service he has given this country.
Mr. Quinn: I mentioned earlier to the Minister that I had spent the previous hour or so with Neil Kinnock, the Commissioner for Administrative Reform in the European Commission. As organisations get older and bigger more bureaucracy develops and then come rules and regulations until very often the citizens' rights are lost. When we adopted the Scandinavian policy of appointing an Ombudsman, we were not quite sure what we were walking ourselves into. I am delighted to see Senator Maurice Hayes here, who has full experience of that in the North of Ireland. When we established the system at first we were not sure exactly how it would work. It worked very well under the first Ombudsman, Michael Mills, and continues to work very well under the second Ombudsman, Kevin Murphy.
I was very impressed by the Minister's words. He talked about the need for knowledge, sympathy, common sense and independence. They are exactly the qualities that Kevin Murphy displayed. There is one other word that I think we could add and that is courage. Kevin Murphy has shown courage. He has been independent but he was also courageous enough to decide what he wanted to do, even if it ruffled feathers or upset others, and to do it.
On that basis, I have great pleasure in supporting the appointment of Emily O'Reilly. There is something to be said for the point that Senator Brian Hayes made about whether this is the correct way to appoint someone. Would we be better with a more open appointment through advertising or some other system? That may be correct and there is probably a better way. If somebody wins an election we know they always have the strength of being to say they won the office in fair and open competition. If somebody is appointed, as has happened in the past in our own political field, they never have quite that same strength of being able to say they won the election. It would probably strengthen a future Ombudsman to know that he or she actually won the post in an open competition.
Emily O'Reilly has shown commitment. Like Senator O'Rourke, I met her in 1984 and she was very bright, young, courageous and enthusiastic at that stage. She had the qualities to which the Minister has referred as being required in this area. I would associate with her the terms dedicated, committed and independent. I believe she will perform very well and that she has the courage and the ability to do what we want her to do. I would say to her, "You have a hard act to follow."
Dr. M. Hayes: I do not know Ms O'Reilly personally but she is a distinguised journalist whom I read regularly. I saw her on a television programme last night and I thought she was very impressive. I congratulate the Minister on an interesting, innovative and quite courageous selection. It seems to me, as to other speakers, that Ms O'Reilly has the potential to be an excellent Ombudsman, and I am very glad to be able to support her appointment.
Though this is terribly politically incorrect, I am not all that sold on open competition for jobs like this. In my experience the people who apply for such jobs are the very people one would not want to appoint. To apply for some of these jobs you would need to have a hole in your head, and good luck to those who take them.
This is a very personalised post. More than anything else it requires common sense, as well as sound judgment and an investigative cast of mind. Each Ombudsman is different and each will bring different qualities to the job. We have been very lucky in this State in the two previous Ombudsmen. By any standards, Kevin Murphy has been an outstanding Ombudsman and Information Commissioner. Michael Mills set up the office and carried it through. The important thing is that there is an office to support the Ombudsman.
It is an interesting precedent that Michael Mills too was a very distinguished journalist. The powers of communication and language which the ordinary citizen can understand are a very important aspect. The alternation between a person who has been steeped in the public service and knows it from the inside, with a person who does not, is also a useful reinforcement and renewal of the office. It is a tribute to the Minister for Finance and a great reassurance to citizens when they know that their watchdog is somebody who does not just roll over and purr every time he or she meets opposition. Ms O'Reilly's record in that regard will stand her in good stead.
It is a very lonely position, and an Ombudsman has nobody to relate to. I found it a great help that there was a committee for the Ombudsman, and that the Ombudsman's reports were taken before this committee and their consequences were sorted out. It certainly helped to make the writ run more smoothly when senior bureaucrats knew that they could be called before this committee. I suggest that as a possibility.
Ms O'Meara: I welcome the appointment of Emily O'Reilly to this position. I do not know her as well as other Senators do, but I would definitely regard her as someone of great single-mindedness, of determination, a very hard worker and in particular a very independent-minded person, somebody who does not suffer fools gladly and is not afraid to dish it out when required. Those are very important qualities to bring to this job.
The fact that the original Ombudsman, Michael Mills, was a journalist very well regarded not only among his colleagues but also among the public almost appeared to create a precedent, to the extent that when Kevin Murphy was appointed there were, as the Minister noted, some questions out there as to whether somebody from inside the public service would do as good a job as someone from outside. As we discovered, he did an excellent job, as his predecessor did.
In fulfilling the additional functions Mr. Murphy was given by the Oireachtas while Ombudsman he showed his mettle, his talent and his superb commitment to the public service, and I pay tribute to him in that regard. The manner in which he took the role of Information Commissioner and ran with it set a very high standard. I wish Emily O'Reilly very well and send her every good wish. As others have said, she has a hard act to follow, but I do not think she is lacking in talent, courage, commitment or dedication to the task.
Senator Brian Hayes has referred to the fact that it is worth looking at two things. One is the range of personnel from which this appointment could have been made, and the second is the process of appointment. In terms of the range of possibilities, we have so far had journalists and a public servant. I hope future Governments would not rule out the appointment, for instance, of a legal person who has excellent standing in the community, or indeed maybe a business person.
What we are looking for is someone who can look at the public service and hold it accountable. This is what much of the legislation which we have established is all about. It is about legislation to do with accountability and transparency and making sure that the public service and we as politicians serve the people we are supposed to serve, the public.
I welcome the opportunity to comment on the process of appointment. As Senator Brian Hayes has pointed out, there is a question over this process. While we can make these comments, the fact is that the appointment is in the gift of the Government. The matter goes to the President, but it the Government which makes the appointment. There is a strong case to be made for broadening that out. Let the Government make a recommendation to the Houses. One can say that this is a recommendation before us today, but we know we are just going through the motions.
There is a case to be made for a process of examination, a process of having that person come before a committee of both Houses for instance, or the Oireachtas committee responsible for this particular legislation. In effect the appointment would thus be scrutinised. This is an extraordinarily important appointment, and the person chosen is answerable not only to us but to the public, yet the public will never get the opportunity to comment or to ask the person any questions unless through the medium of the press, the area the person comes from.
I hope we will return to the whole process of appointment. As an NUJ member myself I welcome the appointment of a journalist, but with regard to the Freedom of Information legislation I made the point a short time ago regarding the importance of the media, the Fourth Estate. The fact that a journalist has been appointed to the position makes my point that journalists are very important people in the operation of our democracy, and they are people to whom the public look to ensure that its rights are upheld.
Minister for Finance (Mr. McCreevy): I thank the Members on all sides of the House for their contributions and I hope that the incoming Ombudsman will be as efficient and effective as the previous two incumbents. In reply to Senator Brian Hayes, and he can check this with his party leader, the conversation did not take place over the phone, it took place face to face – Senator O'Meara is nodding in agreement. It took place with the three party leaders, Deputies Kenny, Rabbitte and Sargent.