Deputy B. Desmond is in possession and he has eight minutes left.
Private Members' Business. - Ombudsman Bill, 1979: Second Stage (Resumed).
Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."
The introduction of an ombudsman in the Republic to deal with issues of maladministration is long overdue. It is unlikely that the Government's Bill will be introduced before the Dáil goes into recess, probably around 14 December, and it is even more unlikely that this Bill will be enacted until about mid-1980 when an ombudsman will be appointed. This delay is inexcusable, hence the support on the Labour Party side for the Fine Gael Private Members' Bill which, irrespective of its technical aspects, could be amended at this stage by Government amendment. If it were allowed to proceed further on that basis the prospect of having an ombudsman appointed early in the new year would be enhanced considerably. At present there are ombudsmen, or ombudspersons as they may be called in due course, working with varying degrees of effectiveness in the UK, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway and New Zealand, to mention a few countries. One of the functions of every elected Dáil Deputy is to try to ensure that his constituents do not suffer any injustice at the hands of the Government or their administration. Therefore, the prospect of any Deputy or his complaining constituent being able in future to refer matters to an ombudsman who would be independent and entirely impartial is most welcome.
I see the appointment of the ombudsman as an additional democratic measure for the benefit of all citizens so that they do not just have to contact their local Dáil Deputy and he does not necessarily have to put down a Dáil question or raise the matter in correspondence with a Minister or by way of question on the Adjournment in a Dáil debate. The citizen will, I hope, have direct access himself to the ombudsman, and so also will a Deputy on behalf of a constituent. I hope that we shall not follow the precedent in the UK and in France whereby claims may be submitted to the ombudsman only by members of parliament. It should be open to any citizen to file his complaint of maladministration if he feels that he has been treated unjustly.
The question arises as to what constitutes maladministration. In that regard I draw attention to the description given by the late Richard Crossman when he was putting through the UK Bill. In terms of administration he used the words "bias", "neglect", "inattention", "delay", "ineptitude" and "incompetence". Another example which he used was "arbitrariness" in relation to administration. He gave a very wide description of complaints which could arise. Clearly, it will be within the function of an Irish ombudsman to deal with complaints of that nature. Naturally, it will be outside the ambit of the functions of an ombudsman to investigate issues directly related to legislative pronouncements by the Government or ordinary Government policy as such. However, there are substantial areas of policy which spill over into administration and in such the ombudsman manifestly could have a direct function. I hope that the Government Bill, when it sees the light of day, will have clearly designed functions for the ombudsman to investigate, to disclose, to report and to recommend in relation to complaints that can be investigated. Clearly, most of us would support the general view that reports and recommendations that the ombudsman might make should also be published. Therefore, I hope that the Government Bill will contain extensive powers to enable the ombudsman to call witnesses, to call for documents and to have these produced fully so that he will be in a position to administer oaths where necessary in investigation. In the event of his investigations being obstructed I hope that he will have the same powers as exist in relation to contempt of court. I hope also that his reports will enjoy parliamentary privilege in the broad sense that we enjoy it here in terms of our utterances and the publication of Dáil proceedings.
Therefore, the Dáil must commend the promoters of the Fine Gael Private Members' Bill. We on this side of the House commended it. We regret that there seems to be no indication on the Government's side that the Bill might be taken as read and then amended and on that basis it could pass into law. In the light of that attitude we hope that the Government Bill will be published as soon as possible, certainly before the Christmas recess, so that we can have a chance to go through it very carefully and table any amendments in due course for the Committee Stage debate. On that basis we support the Fine Gael Bill and we urge the House to give the Bill every opportunity of being enacted.
(Cavan-Monaghan): The debate about the appointment of or necessity for an ombudsman started in this country as far back as the early sixties. It was felt generally at that time that the activities of the Government and the bureaucracy under the Government were intruding fairly extensively into the lives of ordinary people. The Department of Local Government, as they were then, had a very big part to play in organising the lives of people in housing, later on in regard to planning and in many other matters. The Department of Health also played a big part in organising the lives of people and requiring them to comply with this, that and other regulations.
As the Department of Social Welfare expanded people acquired more rights. They acquired rights to social assistance and social benefit and as they acquired rights they also developed grievances if they were not getting what they considered to be their rights. If one went right across the whole field of departmental activity the story was the same. One Department after another were attempting to regulate the lives of the people. In many cases their intervention was for the benefit of all of the people. This intervention brought with it rights for many people. The question arose day after day as to whether people were being treated fairly, whether social welfare classes were getting fair play and whether some were getting more fair play than others.
The same could be said about the acquisition of land by the Department of Local Government and in regard to health cards when they were introduced. The same could be said in regard to the Department of Justice and the Garda. Right across the whole field there was a clash very often between the Government, Government agencies and individuals. We had the question asked again and again if some people were receiving preferential treatment compared with others. It must be conceded that the public in general did not have any faith in appeals to Ministers no matter by what party or by what Government those Ministers were appointed. The people felt that where there was a determination of the matter at ministerial level, Ministers were subject to political pressure of one sort or another.
The people at that time felt there was need for an independent person who would stand between the Government and them and between the Departments and them. In that climate the ombudsman debate began in the early sixties. I entered the Oireachtas as a Member of Seanad Éireann in 1961 and at that time there used to be a programme on television known as "The Hurlers on the Ditch". It was on one of those programmes that I first heard a public debate about the necessity for an ombudsman.
As very often happens, the debate here followed the debate elsewhere. A parliamentary commissioner was appointed in Britain about 1964. Three years later in Northern Ireland, which was not noted for impartiality in its administration of various Departments, also appointed a parliamentary commissioner. It was to be expected that debate about the matter would be urgent here but it was not until 1975 that any worthwhile moves were taken to appoint an ombudsman. The matter was brought to a head by a Private Members' Motion put down in the name of Deputy Fergus O'Brien of the Fine Gael Party who opened this debate last week. That motion called for the appointment of an ombudsman. As far as I can remember it was supported by the then Opposition, the present Government, and was accepted by the Government. That motion calling for an ombudsman left this House as an agreed resolution.
In December 1975 the then Minister for the Public Service, Deputy Richie Ryan, invited Members of all parties, and Independents in the House, to take part in an all-party committee to discuss and advise on the establishment of the office of ombudsman. There has been a bit of acrimony between the Tánaiste and Deputy Richie Ryan in the course of this debate as to how that committee worked, whether they worked in harmony or otherwise. The Fianna Fáil Party participated in that committee at a very high level because the present Tánaiste was vice-chairman. The then Minister for Finance and for the Public Service, Deputy Richie Ryan, was chairman. I am sure the House will accept from me that it was a fairly high powered all-party committee. One thing which appears to me to be rather peculiar about that committee and the participation of the Fianna Fáil Party is that although they were represented on it by the present Tánaiste, for Deputy Hugh Gibbons, the present Minister for Defence, Deputy Molloy, the present Minister for Industry, Commerce and Energy, Deputy O'Malley—I see he is thinking about bringing back car tax but that is not totally relevant——
It is not relevant at all.
(Cavan-Monaghan): I cannot mention the man's name without noting that he has been so reported today. Deputy Patrick Power was also a member of that committee. That was a very heavy representation from the Fianna Fáil Party. It is significant that they did not attend the first meeting of the committee because they had a Fianna Fáil Party meeting, which was apparently called subsequent to fixing the date of the first meeting. We know that Fianna Fáil Party meetings can be important but they should have torn themselves away from that meeting and attended the first meeting of the committee. It is also significant that they did not attend the last meeting of the committee, which was held at the end of May 1977. There were nine meetings in all and during the seven meetings that were attended by Fianna Fáil Members agreement was reached on a report to be sent to the Minister for the Public Service. The recommendation of the committee was that an ombudsman be appointed. The Fianna Fáil Members of the committee wanted to make further recommendations but the Minister said that they were unimportant. Therefore, we may take it that the recommendations of the committee were unanimous.
An ombudsman was appointed in Britain in 1964 and in Northern Ireland in 1967. Since then an ombudsman has been appointed in most member states. Fine Gael were genuine and sincere in their anxiety to have an ombudsman appointed. We held that view when we were in Government and facilitated the appointment of an ombudsman. We hold that view in Opposition and we have waited patiently for two-and-a-half years for the Government to introduce a Bill. They were elected in June 1977 with the biggest majority ever. They were elected to govern and one would have expected innovations from them; that they would do things that needed to be done and that they would not be afraid to deal with difficult matters, not that the appointment of an ombudsman is a difficult matter because it was an agreed measure.
Having waited in vain for the Government to appoint an ombudsman, Deputy R. Ryan presented a Private Members' Bill to the Dáil on 21 May last, six months ago. He followed the necessary procedures to get the Bill into Private Members' Time and to secure for it the right to a Second Reading in accordance with the rules and procedures of this House. Apparently the Government were shamed into doing something and they introduced their Bill by name only. When a Government are not ready to introduce a Bill but want to give some evidence of their intention, they introduce a Bill by its long and short title. In this case the Bill was put on the Order Paper by its short title before the summer recess. We never heard another word about this Bill until we sought a Second Reading for our Bill. Then the Government tried to deny us a Second Reading debate but they could not obstruct our Bill because we had proceeded in accordance with the rules of the House. So far, we have not seen the Government's Bill. If this debate does nothing more than drag the Government's Bill onto the table of this House we will have done a good day's work.
The Minister complained that our Bill was not perfect and that he was not introducing his Bill until he could introduce a perfect Bill. Was any Bill ever introduced in a perfect condition? I believe our Bill is an excellent one and goes further than the recommendations of the committee in so far as it extends the activities of the ombudsman to local authorities, health boards and so on.
The Landlord and Tenant (Amendment) Bill, 1979, was introduced some time ago by the Minister for Justice. I spent a day drafting my amendments to it. However, yesterday I was not surprised when I received a list of more than 20 amendments to the Landlord and Tenant Bill which were drafted by the man who introduced it. I mention the Landlord and Tenant Bill to show that Bills are frequently amended by the Minister who introduces them. Is the Minister serious in saying that his reason for opposing our Bill is that it is not perfect? I put it to the Minister that it would not take 30 amendments, or one-half of 30 amendments, or one-third of 30 amendments, to bring our Bill into conformity with what is acceptable to him. If he is serious or genuine about it, why does he not put down amendments? Why does he not agree to Second Stage and avail of Committee Stage to amend our Bill if he wants to do so? He has not done that.
There is an urgency about having an ombudsman for several reasons. There should be some sort of independent tribunal standing between the various organs and Departments of State who, of necessity, invade the private lives and activities of individuals. There should be somebody standing between the people whose lives and property are affected and the Departments of State, the local authorities and the health boards. That independent person should not be subject to the pressures of politics or the pressure of having to be elected every five years. Our Bill provides the machinery for appointing such a person.
The ombudsman is to be appointed by the President on the nomination of the Dáil carried by a two-thirds majority of the Dáil and Seanad. He cannot be removed from office except for stated reasons, and also by a two-thirds majority of the Dáil and Seanad. Surely he would be an independent person. He would not be subject to political or other pressures. The only shortcoming I see in the appointment is that I believe a period of six years is probably not a long enough tenure of office. I am speaking personally because I did not take an active part in the drafting of this Bill.
I would say, as is said in the Bill, that he should retire at 67 years of age, but I would give him a longer tenure of office. If the Minister put down an amendment to that effect I would not be opposed to it. He would be an independent person of the same calibre as our judiciary. He would stand between bureaucracy and the people. It may be said that the courts are there, but the courts are cumbersome and expensive. They are not suited to the type of job we want done here.
There is another reason why I think an ombudsman should be appointed. In the absence of an ombudsman Deputies are expected to do certain work which they are not geared to do. They do their best to try to see that people get their rights. If there is a serious matter to be investigated, a local Deputy is not the man to do that job. If some public official or some local official wants to be taken on, a Deputy who must be on reasonable terms with him and must be able to discuss local matters with him and be able to ask him to assist him in one way or another, is not the man to do that job. There should be an independent person who is not subject to the pressures involved in remaining in public life in a democratic system of election such as ours. Therefore an ombudsman is a real necessity.
If public representatives were relieved to some extent of the type of work they have to do they would have more time to devote to their real purpose as Deputies, that is, to legislate, to examine every piece of legislation which comes before this House. That is an onerous job. If Deputies have to look after their party organisations and their constituencies and, at the same time, act as an ombudsman in various ways and to various degrees, they cannot be expected to have time to study and scrutinise legislation which comes before the House. Neither have they the time to read and produce policies within their own party or to criticise Government or Opposition policy. Those are the things Deputies are really supposed to do.
I am not trying to get rid of my duty as a Deputy in my constituency. Even though I say it myself, I believe I pay as much attention to my constituency as anybody else. When you have Deputies like Deputy Rory O'Hanlon coming across the border into your county you have to be on your toes. Multi-seat constituencies lend themselves to that sort of thing. You cannot forget about your constituency. You must look after it. The appointment of an ombudsman would relieve Deputies of a lot of the work they have to do and leave them free to render far better and far more valuable service to the nation.
I cannot understand why Fianna Fáil are dodging this issue from beginning to end. I do not believe their hearts were in the all-party committee. They did not attend the first meeting or the last meeting. In my time as Minister, I experienced another effort by the Fianna Fáil Party to kill the party system to which they give so much lip service. The report went before the Minister as an agreed measure. Now Fianna Fáil have been in office for two and a half years. They had a majority of 20, which is less than 20 now, and the signs are that it will be getting smaller. They have done nothing about this Bill.
There is an argument as to whether we left a draft Bill behind us. Deputy Richie Ryan has stated that there was a draft Bill in the Department and that he actually saw it and worked on it. I am prepared to accept his word. Fianna Fáil speakers said there was no draft Bill. It should be a simple matter to find out whether or not there was and to find out who is telling the truth. We might need an ombudsman in more places than one to solve that type of argument.
Two and a half years later we have to finish the job in Opposition which we started in Government. We appointed the committee. We got the report of the committee. We dragged in the public before we left office. We are blamed for that too. The Minister said we should not have done that. We got a report of the committee onto the table of the House and published it. We did that in Government. In Opposition we waited patiently for the Fianna Fáil Government to produce a Bill. They did not produce any. In May last we put our Bill on the table of the House and again we waited patiently for six months but there was still no move on the part of the Government. All they did was simply to put the name of a Bill on the Order Paper and leave it at that. In these circumstances we had no option but to demand a Second Reading debate and I should be very surprised if we were very much older by the time we see a Fianna Fáil Bill, but if that happens this party will be entitled to the credit for having such a Bill brought forward.
I welcome the opportunity of a debate on this matter. Like Deputy Fitzpatrick I am disappointed, though not surprised, that the Government have failed to produce a Bill of their own. I am glad that the Minister of State at the Department of Industry, Commerce and Energy is present because she was here, too, when we had a debate of this kind about a year ago on another Bill which concerned her Department but in respect of which also there was much delay. It was only a matter of days after we had produced a Bill to deal with the same issue that the Government brought forward a Bill of their own despite the fact that on various occasions on which we had asked about the delay we were told that the original Bill needed major redrafting. However, when the Government Bill was produced we found that it was an exact replica of the Bill we had put forward by way of a Private Members' Bill. Hopefully, this Bill will prove to be just as successful as was that other Bill in flushing out the Government Bill from wherever it lies.
The necessity for an ombudsman is accepted by all. Indeed, it ought to be accepted by the 148 ombudsmen in this House. Having regard to the length of time during which there has been an awareness of an acceptance of the office of ombudsman, it is not satisfactory that this office has not been created yet. However, other speakers have dwelt on the reasons for this situation.
The relevant area in which we are involved is in the area of the work of an ombudsman. As public representatives we are involved very much in seeking redress for those who consider that they have grievances against one Department of State or another. The Minister of State, in the Consumer Information Act, gave us a director of consumer affairs to oversee the operations of advertising and of the presentation of information with regard to the sale of goods. The person who holds that office, Mr. Murray, has been doing a very fine job so far on behalf of the consumer. The area with which this Bill is concerned is much broader than that other area, as every Deputy here knows well. One of the major problems we find is the decision we must make daily as to the time we have to spend in this Chamber discussing legislation or the time we have to spend upstairs either amending or making legislation and the time we spend acting as ombudsmen in the very practical role of saving our own skins, or, in other words, doing our constituency work. I would be the last person to advocate that this type of work on the part of Deputies should be abandoned and handed over to some other agency such as the office of ombudsman. However, if, as Deputies, we had some source to which we could hand over cases that could be investigated impartially and dispassionately, we would be doing a very worthwhile job both on behalf of the country and on behalf of those individuals who find it necessary to have their affairs scrutinised.
We have what is perhaps the most centralised form of Government in western Europe. As time passes the situation becomes more centralised. During the past couple of years, for instance, the influence of local authorities has been eroded substantially. The sugar coating on that pill of erosion was the withdrawal of rates on domestic dwellings, but nobody can deny the erosion of our obligations and functions at local level. Nowadays all types of grants in respect of housing, whether for new houses or for the reconstruction of existing houses, are dealt with in this city within the Department of the Environment. There is no input whatever by the local authorities. Consequently, members of local authorities are precluded from any involvement in this area of activity. If it were not for the situation of dual membership in which I find myself, that is, membership of a local authority as well as membership of this House, I would have great difficulty in acting for the people I represent in terms of inquiries at Departments. My colleagues in the local authority who are not Members of this House are not in the position of being able to go into the various Departments seeking information and so on.
The workings of the Departments, because of this centralised system, are becoming more complex, so that Departments are evolving into an amalgam of operations requiring mounds of legislation and of regulations by order day after day. It is very difficult for us to keep abreast of what is happening in different Departments. Things are getting very complex and to confound confusion further we have the involvement of the EEC and its agencies. They, in no small way, add to the mound of legislation, directives and so on that are being implemented as part of our domestic law. At the end of the day what is known as the average man or woman—if such a person exists—is not in a position to know what regulations apply in a particular case and which may apply to them personally. They are not in a position to keep abreast of happenings and they should not be expected to be. The T.D. is expected to give an answer to all types of questions ranging over all Departments, European directives and so on. In many cases he or she is not in a position to do so because it is not possible to keep up with what is happening across the board in all Departments and agencies.
As regards the area of social welfare, I come from the west and find that matters relating to health and social welfare take up a disproportionate volume of time in the normal work of the day. People are not aware of their rights. There is a strange phenomenon concerning this Department. The Department, to their credit, have tried to inform people of their rights and to serve the section of the community which is dependent on them. We have not developed a social advisory service to the extent that other countries have but the Department have taken it on themselves to provide information officers at various centres. I am sad, but not surprised, to say that the average person will not go to that officer because he regards them as part of the Establishment. I know some of these officers and they are first class people. They attach compassion and ability to their work and they are friendly to people in need of help and advice. When they come to me for advice I find myself, as I am sure other Deputies do, ringing that same person to whom they could have gone to in the first place to get all the answers, fill their forms and advise them on claiming pensions, benefits and so on. However, they will not go to him because there is an inherent fear in the person's mind that once he steps inside that office he is inside the Establishment. The historical truth is that people, through the years for obvious reasons, looked on the Establishment, Departments of State and so on with suspicion. Prior to the establishment of this State they sought their advice elsewhere. We are a young country and have yet to realise that we are dealing with our own people from whom we can expect compassion, honesty, fair play and so on.
That is ample reason for me to feel that I am within my rights in asking that the office of ombudsman be established without any further delay. There is an obligation on the Government to see to it that this service is forthcoming at the earliest possible moment. I go along fully with Deputy Fitzpatrick in suggesting that if this Bill is found wanting the political reality is that it can be amended. The Government would not suffer any loss of face by being men enough to stand up, accept this Bill and amend it, beyond recognition if they wish. They have power to do it and should not waste time in deferring it indefinitely by putting down the Title of a Bill on the Order Paper and saying, "We have our own Bill." It is shabby treatment and not good enough. The gratitude of the country would be forthcoming to the Government if they accepted the Bill and amended it if in their wisdom they felt amendments were necessary.
As regards the office itself, the Bill sets out the kind of person who will occupy the position of ombudsman. The first requisite is independence. The office must be seen to be beyond the grasp of any Minister in any Government at any time. It must have creditability and the capacity to take decisions without fear or favour. To do that it must be outside the public service. From what I have said I could easily be misinterpreted. From the logic of what I have said it could be said that members of the public service have not got creditability, integrity, honesty or anything else. That is rubbish. Of course they have, but because they are members of the public service working in their own compartments within Departments they are answerable to people who are their superiors who are answerable to others who have more superiors and ultimately there is one man answerable to the political head of a Department, the Minister.
The chain of responsibility goes right down. The pinnacle of authority at the top, from a very broad base, eventually reaches ministerial responsibility and influence because what goes up must come down. If the messenger at X is responsible to Y that chain goes on. If we have an ombudsman who can act independently, using his own good sense and discretion, in that office, we are setting ourselves on the right road to give a service for which this country is crying out. For his own sake, and for the sake of the position he fills, that ombudsman must be seen to be independent and must be kept outside the public service area, because of what I say concerning Ministerial responsibilities.
Let me give full marks to the public servants down the years for what they have done to ensure the smooth working of the service they provide. As a Deputy, I find public servants most helpful and good at trying to unwind the complexities of legislation and applying that legislation to day-to-day demands. However, human nature being what it is—and I am no angel—if a person makes a mistake, the first thing he does is try to get out of it, causing himself as little damage as possible. That may very well be by standing up and saying "Mea culpa. I am sorry, I have made a mistake. I am wrong". It may also be that he will sweep it under the carpet. That type of behaviour is not the preserve of public servants; it is human nature. For these reasons, the independence of the office of ombudsman is absolutely essential, in defending the rights of individuals against the wrongdoing of a system, which may be accidental or deliberate—to my knowledge, the latter case is very, very rare indeed, despite what people might think. I know of no public servant—and I know a good many of them—who would set out to act in a way which would be detrimental to anybody who wants to get his or her entitlement.
The Deputy has five minutes.
I shall not even take five minutes. Unless there is a very deliberate effort made by the ombudsman and, in particular by Departments to inform people of their rights, the office of ombudsman will become overloaded with trying to disentangle threads which would not have become entangled in the first place if the individual knew his or her rights.
Many of the injustices to people dealing with public Departments are their own fault because they start off with misinformation or, indeed, no information. When they are up to their eye-balls in trouble, who do they come to but the TD. At that stage, in many cases, it is too late. The applicant or claimant has done so much wrong to his own claim and his own case that the situation is irretrievable and the TD who does not retrieve that situation is, to put it mildly, no good, according to the man who comes to him for help.
The function of a TD as ombudsman changes with the change of Government. If he happens to be on this side of the House, he can always blame the Government, the Minister or the Minister of State, as the case may be, if he does not get what he regards as his client's entitlement. If he is sitting on the far side of the House, it is totally different. If he is not a Minister, he may blame the Minister. I have no experience of what he might do. I hope that the Minister has some answers to that. If the office of ombudsman were established, having the right person, of independence and credibility, surrounded by a good staff, I see no reason why his services should not be availed of—I nearly said used—by members of this House, as well as individuals and, indeed, groups. Parallel with that kind of operation, there is a crying need for an educational breakthrough, an information crash programme on the right of individuals and their entitlements, particularly in areas like social welfare, health and agriculture which is a large area with a complex system, more complicated by the involvement in the EEC. People depend on Departments, on civil servants, on information officers, on TD's, when they find themselves in a helpless situation. They are, in many cases, socially underprivileged, educationally underprivileged and totally dependent on other people for help and advice. In these circumstances in the light of this country's experience, in the light of our individual experiences in this House, surely the case for an ombudsman is unanswerable. Unless we start off on the right footing, establishing an office that will have the backing and trust of all concerned I am afraid we will merely be adding one more layer of bureaucracy to an already overloaded bureaucratic system, totally centralised not giving to the dependent individual the kind of service it sought to give or to which he is entitled.
I shall not keep Deputy William O'Brien long because I know he wants to speak on this Bill. I must reiterate what the Minister for Finance said here last Tuesday evening—that this is the grossest example of political opportunism by the Fine Gael party. Once their Whips were made aware that we were about to introduce the Ombudsman (No. 2) Bill they moved immediately to have their Bill taken. When our Bill comes before the House very shortly, as they know it will, I hope they will be big enough to admit that it is a better Bill than theirs.
Is it coming; that is the problem?
Deputy L'Estrange can tell the Deputy when it is coming because he was already privy to that knowledge, that it was about to be produced.
It was not ready last week anyway.
In a mature way one must accept firstly that, when the recommendations came from the All-Party Committee—who were then preparing a report—there was no Bill ready or got ready by the last Government. Secondly no submissions had been sought by the last Government from the public at large. As the Deputy is well aware, when Fianna Fáil came into office one of the first things we did was to advertise for submissions, when we got 18 different submissions for our Bill.
We have already stated in the course of this debate on this side of the House—we cannot say what is in the Bill until it is circulated but what we can say is that the remit of the ombudsman covered too wide an area and it had been agreed by the All-Party Committee that this should be narrowed down so that he would not be swamped by having so much to do. For example, the Minister mentioned 20,000 income tax appeals a year. If, having gone through the appeals system, the courts and everything else available to the public, they were to come to him he would be unable to cope with the flood coming his way.
He is a lucky man he is not there already.
There is a lot of blood being spilt in that direction.
(Interruptions.)
Please, Deputies. We were having a very quiet debate up to now. If Deputy L'Estrange could restrain himself when he comes in he would be very welcome in the House. Deputy Briscoe without interruption.
Deputies are giving me sufficient time to quote from the speech of the Minister for Finance on Tuesday last, 20 November 1979, volume 316, No. 12, at column 2068 of the Official Report when he said:
I charge the Fine Gael Party with political opportunism in this matter, firstly because of the circumstances in which they—and Deputy Ryan, in particular—tried to rush it through
—that is, the Bill—
for the elections, in the absence of the Opposition who had co-operated fully in preparing this all party report. Secondly, I accuse the Fine Gael Party of that because the Fine Gael Whip
—that is, Deputy L'Estrange—
was told clearly that the Government had this Bill almost ready and would be circulating it quite shortly. They insisted, as they are entitled to do within the rules of this House, on bringing in this Private Members' Bill. I suggest there is only one reason for that. It is because they want to suggest the Government have deliberately held up the Bill. It is the same pattern that we had prior to the last general election when an effort was made to try to reap the kudos for the work done by Deputies from all sides of the House.
I do not want to delay Deputy W. O'Brien although, by looking at him, I think he is welcoming the respite. It is an extremely difficult Bill to draft; the pitfalls into which any draftsman can fall in a Bill like this have been referred to by the Minister for Finance and I do not want to repeat his speech. But, when it comes before the House not alone am I happy in the knowledge that it will have the full support of the Opposition but that they will agree there have been improvements effected which were worth waiting for for an extra couple of weeks. But to say, as Deputy R. Ryan said last week, that we have been waiting for four-and-a-half years is unfair. It must be remembered that there was on Bill ready when the Coalition left office.
That is no excuse, for God's sake.
We will have to wait and see.
We will have to wait and see and I hope the people opposite will be big enough to admit that it is a better Bill and——
Stand ten feet tall.
——that we will get it through fairly quickly without too much fuss and bother. I should like to refer to one matter mentioned by Deputy Fitzpatrick. If there are Members of this House who think that the ombudsman will take a lot of their constituency work from them, they have another guess coming. As a politician over 14 years I am aware that one thing the public expect of their public representatives is that they be available to represent them in their problems. I should not like to see the day when we were completely supplanted by another bureaucrat which is what an ombudsman will be ultimately. I think we give a great service to our people. Deputy O'Toole referred to Government here being very centralised and remote from the people. There is not any country I can think of in which people have greater access to their public representatives than ours. I hope that will continue always. It is a very good facet of our system and it helps democracy. We are the buffers, as it were, between the bureaucrats and the people. Ultimately that is our role, and that of legislators comes second in the eyes of many people.
We are second to the dockers now, anyway; instead of the Devlin Report if you give us what the dockers have, we will be satisfied.
If Deputy L'Estrange proposes it, I shall be glad to second it.
I do not think the dockers have anything to do with the ombudsman.
The Deputy said we were second-class citizens, and so we are compared with the dockers.
I am sure Deputy Briscoe agrees with Deputy L'Estrange. Perhaps we could get away from that.
The only thing is that, if we were to go on strike, I think a lot of people would applaud. One of the additional things to be contained in the new Bill will be the Minister's right to widen the scope of the ombudsman, by order. It is important that the Minister be allowed to broaden the work as he builds up his team. If the ombudsman were allowed to cover the entire spectrum of our society we could have a situation where nothing would be done right, where we would just have an extra bureaucracy. The ombudsman should have the right to investigate as much for TDs as for ordinary people. If the ombudsman is abused in the early stages it could be disastrous. Our Bill has been very carefully scrutinised and I am sorry that the Fine Gael Party were not prepared to wait a couple of weeks for it to be introduced.
(Interruptions.)
The Fine Gael Party have been a little too impatient although they were told in the ordinary course of business that a Bill would be introduced, that it was nearly ready and that only a few points had to be tidied up.
Has the Deputy seen the Bill?
No, but I accept what the Minister said in his statement as reported in the Dáil Official Report of Tuesday, 20 November at column 2068 of volume 316, which is as follows:
I said, at the outset, that the Bill is not good enough. Unlike the picture painted by Deputy O'Brien of a Government which did not care, the fact is that we cared so much that we wanted to make sure that it is absolutely right, and have taken every precaution to try to ensure that as far as it could be done. The Bill has, in fact been drafted, approved by the Government and in the process of tidying up relatively small points that have come to light, which have to be submitted again to the Government and will, I hope, be dealt with very shortly and the Bill will be published. It has already been introduced by long and short titles.
I felt that I must speak in the light of the hypocrisy of some of the statements we have heard. The public will see that this Bill was well worth waiting for. During the debate on that Bill the Opposition will have an opportunity to examine our Bill in detail along with the all-party Bill, the Coalition Bill, which was not in fact a Bill but a draft report. There are very few changes in the Bill, but the changes made very much improve the Bill and will go a long way towards ensuring that the ombudsman will get off to a proper start.
I welcome the concept of an ombudsman. I was disappointed that a Bill appointing an ombudsman had not been introduced long ago. We are one of the two countries in the EEC without an ombudsman, and an ombudsman is vitally important.
If the present trend continues public representatives will find themselves in a very difficult position. The public are losing confidence in public representatives. Daily I have to ring the Department about four times to get some satisfaction for a frustrated social welfare recipient in dire need of money to buy food. On the other end of the line some courteous civil servant tells me that the matter is being investigated and that the person will receive a letter in another week. The frustrated applicant sits outside waiting for me to tell him that he will get his money tomorrow but that is usually not the case and as a result of this state of affairs people lose confidence in public representatives.
I am not surprised. Recently a person who took part in a local elections canvass told me that a prospective supporter intimated that she would not vote at all because she had lost confidence in all public representatives. A candidate in the group advised her that she should vote for him because his brother was responsible for getting her social welfare money for her. That is a distasteful degrading situation for the ordinary man in the street. People have reason to be frustrated and embarrassed and have reason to believe that an independent ombudsman would do the job far better, because an ombudsman would not be aligned to any political party. People believe that politicians are not prepared to let down the establishment. There are cases where lists of planning applications are posted out to public representatives who use the names and addresses and write to those people saying that they will get the planning permission for them if they contact that public representative. That is another good reason why we should have an ombudsman. Also, many people approach us with imaginary grievances. If a person feels that he is not getting satisfaction from the public representative he should have some other alternative. If we had an ombudsman there would be fewer strikes, because people will accept an ombudsman as an advocate where they would not accept a politician. That would at least reduce the frustration and would give people a certain amount of confidence in relation to decisions.
There was never a time when democracy was in such danger as it is at present. We should be ever mindful of what might happen in the immediate future. The simple appointment of an ombudsman could do a lot of good.
Debate adjourned.
The Dáil adjourned at 8.30 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Wednesday, 28 November 1979.