The Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Deputy Connolly, is in possession and has some 24 minutes remaining.
Private Members' Business. - Public Offices (Privacy of Interviews) Bill, 1988: Second Stage (Resumed).
Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."
I outlined yesterday various points of view in regard to this matter. The Bill proposes to establish an appeals procedure whereby individuals may appeal in relation to the provisions of the Act. Who would deal with these appeals, and who would provide the extra staff to implement the appeal procedures?
For many years my Department have operated public officers in relation to housing grants, group water schemes, driver testing, etc. However, despite the thousands of interviews that have been held, especially in the grants section, there have been few if any complaints about the lack of privacy. Indeed, I can assure the House that every effort is made to ensure that the public offices operated by my Department are up to the best possible standard and that in these cases where confidential matters have to be discussed with members of the public, the staff of my Department conduct those discussions with tact and understanding.
With regard to driver testing, which is a major activity administered by my Department, involving some 70,000 tests annually confidentiality is certainly something to which every individual has a right. Part of the test involves an oral examination on the Rules of the Road at the test centre in the first instance and, if the individual subsequently fails his practical test, a written explanation of the faults which contributed to that failure is given to him or her by the tester. These tests are held on a half-hourly basis, which gives the applicant the necessary time.
I would be the first to agree that an individual, in those circumstances, should enjoy security and confidentiality and my Department have always fully recognised that fact. In most test centres throughout the country a problem in this regard would not arise because of the relatively small numbers being tested at any one time. Only in the major urban centres could a problem arise; in Dublin, for example, the big increase in numbers seeking tests has necessitated drafting more testers into the Dublin test centres. This could mean that, on occasions, a lesser degree of privacy would obtain.
My Department are dealing with the problem. The provision of a major new test centre, which will, in effect, be the headquarters centre is in the process of being considered. Negotiations are at an advanced stage. When completed, it will provide first-class facilities for driver testing and relieve any overcrowding at the other two centres in the city. In other parts of the country the local test centres are being or have been improved.
Local authorities throughout the country also have many day-to-day dealings with members of the public. Each local authority has many public offices where inquiries may be made about services and entitlements and where the public may pay rents, house loans, service charges, motor tax etc. These offices are open to the public in general and the emphasis is on providing the best possible service with the shortest possible delay. However, where matters of a confidential nature arise every effort is made to protect that confidentiality.
In recent years much effort has been made by local authorities to improve the position. Many of the hatches have been removed. Where matters of a sensitive nature are concerned, the staff involved have treated people in a most human way. I have had no complaints in this respect, certainly not from my own authorities in Laois-Offaly. The only complaints I had were in regard to the local authority being unable to accede to a request, and we all know the reasons for that. I know the personnel in many local authorities treat all the cases I mentioned with great care and have been particularly understanding when the question of confidentiality arose. I spent a long number of years in local authorities and I know that has been the position.
In areas of dense population, such as Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Waterford and Galway, there may be pressure at times when the public come in to discuss their affairs. I want to assure the House that I will be asking the local authorities to see what improvements can be made. I have noted the references to the facilities available to members of the public in the new Dublin offices but I was not aware of problems in relation to those offices. However, I will now ask the city manager to let me know if there is a need for improved facilities in these offices. We will then see what can be done.
As I have said previously, the provisions of the Bill are like the proverbial sledgehammer used to crack a nut. Section 4 of the Bill proposes that members of the public would need to be protected against visual observance from other members of the public — I am not clear what visual observance means in this context. Does it mean that every public office must have totally enclosed rooms before the public can be dealt with? This requirement would place a huge burden on the bodies referred to in the Bill and I would suggest therefore that the provisions of the Bill would be unworkable.
I have seen many members of the public transacting business in post offices, building societies, banks and the like and they are not generally interviewed in total privacy. The public go to the counter and, in most cases, are attended to by the personnel at the counter.
Section 5 of the Bill states that in meeting the requirements of this Act the Department or designated body concerned should also have regard to the safety of their own personnel and requirements of security. Safety and security must, of course, have a priority in any cases where the general public have access to the offices of Government Departments and other bodies. As Deputies will be aware most public offices are located as far as practicable in secure areas and access is restricted to other parts of the buildings in question. The provisions of this Bill will do nothing to improve the overall situation in this regard. Indeed, they will increase the problems of security and give rise to further unnecessary costs. The need for security is obvious particularly in offices dealing with the public and where cash is involved and the personnel involved must be considered also. Where there is room for improvement I will be happy to help where possible. Local authorities have made a number of major improvements in this regard.
There are certain difficulties in areas of greater population. My own office in O'Connell Bridge House was at one stage handling up to 135,000 applications for grants and there was a steady flow of people into the building for a number of months, but very few complained about not being treated in an appropriate manner, which goes to show that the staff involved treated all these cases with a very human approach and in a competent manner.
If the changes proposed in the Bill with regard to accommodation were to be made, it would cost some money. I must point out also that if each individual were to be interviewed in a private room, irrespective of what was being discussed, I have no doubt it would slow down the processing of applications.
It would mean also that extra personnel would have to be involved. I want to assure the House that if any improvements can be made I will see to it that the local authorities and my own Department will make whatever arrangements are necessary to do so, within reason. In conclusion, I must reject this Bill because it is unnecessary and unworkable but I am pleased this debate is taking place because it gives an opportunity to highlight how Deputies view the matter. I do not think anyone will disagree with me that many improvements have been made by local authorities and other State agencies throughout the country in recent times and that of course is to be welcomed.
I want to make a few comments on the Bill. There is not a lot in it and it would not justify a very lengthy contribution. What is necessary to be said about it could be said in a relatively short space of time. I do not think the time of the House should be taken up with this type of legislation. There are much more important issues that we could be discussing, which would be much more beneficial to the population at large. The Labour Party will be supporting the main thrust of the Bill in the sense that we agree that privacy in public offices should be improved but whether or not legislation to this effect is very practical I have my doubts and I will explain why.
First, I would remind the House that there is an embargo on public service recruitment. In other words, people who retire, are made redundant or take early retirement cannot be replaced except in very exceptional circumstances. That has been the case for some considerable time and it looks as if it will continue.
When talking about improving privacy obviously we would have to talk about improving facilities. We have to include in that the question of personnel and the manning of an improved service. I do not think a Bill of this nature can operate effectively without the necessary backup, without improving facilities in employment exchanges, local authority offices, health board offices and FÁS offices. One example comes to mind. For about a year there has been no receptionist in the FÁS office in Drogheda because of the embargo. The FÁS officer, the most highly paid official in the office, has to carry out the function of the receptionist simply because she could not be replaced. That is the position throughout the public service. It is laughable that we are talking about improving facilities for the general public while at the same time Dáil Éireann has approved the continuation of the embargo in the public service. It is a total contradiction. This measure was implemented under the umbrella of the Programme for National Recovery. I would remind the Minister and indeed my colleagues in Fine Gael who supported it that that is the position.
I will just comment on the main problems in relation to privacy in public places. In local government — I am a member of two local authorities — the problem of privacy arises simply because many local authorities are located in very old buildings, buildings that were not built to cope with the type of services that are provided by local authorities. Most of these buildings date back to the last century or certainly early in this century and very substantial expenditure would be needed to provide the necessary facilities. It is very easy to have privacy in a building such as the county council offices in Portlaoise, a new building which was properly designed and constructed for that purpose, but it is a different matter when we are talking about the old corporation offices throughout the country, many of which have been abandoned for one reason or other and are now being used as local authority offices.
We also have to take into consideration the fact that the staff in these offices have worked for many years in deplorable conditions. They have had to suffer from lack of proper heating and lighting and have had to deal with the public under those conditions. It is true to say, irrespective of what the Minister has just said — I do not know about his constituency but certainly it is the case in my own constituency and in many others — that there have been very frequent complaints from local authority offices. People have to stand at a hatch in the hallway and discuss such matters as rent arrears, the non-payment of mortgages, the fact that the council may be threatening to repossess their houses and non-payment of rates and local service charges which have been proposed and supported by the Dáil. All these matters are dealt with in the main in the hallways of local authority offices. I know of very few local authorities where you can sit down with an official in private to discuss matters such as these. Such offices certainly do not exist in the north-east region, as far as I am aware. Maybe they exist in the Minister's constituency and, if so, I would be very much in favour of extending them to the north-east counties from where I operate.
As far as planning matters are concerned the same applies. People are expected to have their planning application discussed in the presence of other people and the possible objections to or support of their planning application may be known to those who are passing through or standing around. We do not need legislation to improve that. We need a county manager or a town or county engineer to make the necessary decisions to improve the facilities in which the staff operate and in which the general public are seen. To do that the local authority need to have money. There is no point in the Minister saying that facilities will be improved without providing the money. At the moment in local authorities there is not enough money to pay for the filling of potholes in the country roads, the national primary roads and the national secondary roads. Money is being cut back at the rate of millions of pounds in each local authority. In those circumstances it is ludicrous to talk about improving the facilities for the general public. If the local authorities are provided with the funds to improve the roads and the footpaths and to provide sewerage and water schemes where they are needed, we can then talk about improving facilities in public offices for the public. Let us get our priorities right.
I am in favour of the principle of improving facilities but only on the basis that the Bill would provide some mechanism for financing the improvement. Far too much legislation is enacted here which ends up on the shelf in Government Departments because there is not enough money to put it into operation. Any local authority will tell us that. There are a number of other Government Bills coming on-stream which will end up in the same way.
The PAYE sector are paying more than their fair share. Yet in the tax offices throughout Dublin where most of them are located, people have to queue ten deep to receive attention and everybody and anybody can listen to the discussion that takes place between the official and the person with the problem whether it relates to filling in an application form or querying an application form.
The Minister had an opportunity to provide appropriate facilities in that area. Most of the facilities in that area are relatively new. Many of the offices were rented at expensive rates, quite recently, yet no arrangements were made to provide proper facilities for the general public. I went into one such office recently where one could not even get to a toilet. One had to go down two floors to get to a toilet. Recent Governments had absolute control over this situation. They could have insisted on proper design and proper facilities for the general public before they paid out millions of pounds to private companies and individuals for rent. They did not do that. Are we now to reconstruct and renovate buildings owned by private companies? We cannot do that. We cannot reconstruct buildings which do not belong to Government Departments; and the vast bulk of the tax offices are accommodated in rented accommodation.
We are all very familiar with social welfare offices. How would this Bill deal with the situation in a village in rural Ireland where the people have to go to the local Garda station to sign on every week and where they are interviewed by officials from the Department when there is an investigation, for instance, about working and signing on which is happening all over the place now? Most of these Garda stations where such interviews take place are old buildings with no real facilities. The people have to sign on at a certain time as the stations are not open eight hours a day to enable people in rural areas to sign on. All the social welfare business undertaken in these stations is dealt with in the open and people in the Garda station can hear what is being said. Under this Bill are we to reconstruct every Garda barracks in every rural area? That would be ridiculous.
When Deputy Desmond was Minister he provided additional finance to improve the facilities in Dundalk. The facilities, improved though they were, can no longer cope with the number of people who are unemployed so that the office must pay out, four days out of five a week. It is no longer possible to facilitate the signing on and paying of people on one day. They must do that on four days, with eight different sessions in one week. How then does one cope with every person with a query or how does one cope when the official has a query? Are all these people to be taken into the back room and interviewed? That is not very practical especially when one takes into consideration the fact that some people are waiting and watching every day of the week with the intention of robbing social welfare offices, post offices, or barracks. We must also consider the security and the lives of the staff and the people who must guard them, the Garda and security workers. What does one do if there are queries relating to ten or 15 people? Should there be ten different rooms in use on a morning when there are 1,000 people waiting outside to be paid? That is not very practical either.
The only way the problem can be solved is by a gradual improvement in the facilities available in social welfare offices. I am satisfied that the facilities are disgraceful and that an improvement is warranted, but we cannot legislate for it. The Department should provide better facilities but in practical terms that improvement cannot be achieved at the moment because of the construction of the buildings. The only way to achieve improvement is to extend the buildings, reconstruct them or replace them. Many of the old labour exchanges were rented out by private individuals and we do not have the right to interfere with them. Offices owned by the Department and managed at local level would need to be totally replaced in many cases. At the moment people have to queue up out on the street in the middle of winter. I have seen this throughout the country. It is ridiculous for the Minister to talk about the facilities being improved. They have not been improved in general. They are still Stone Age facilities as far as the general public and the bulk of social welfare recipients are concerned.
The same situation applies in post offices. The queues at the post offices for children's allowances, for old age pensions, for invalidity pensions and all sorts of pensions collected in post offices, are half way down the street on the mornings they are paid. There is not room to cope with the queues. The only institutions that provide the privacy we would all like to see are the financial institutions. You never have any problem with privacy in a bank. They can spend money to provide the necessary facilities. Because they are in competition with each other, if they do not provide proper facilities their customers will go to the bank down the street where the facilities are provided. People do not want to discuss their business — loans, repayments, arrears, etc. — in public. Therefore, the banks have devised a more efficient way of conducting business. Perhaps the Department of Social Welfare, or the Department of Health, which is represented in the Chamber by the Minister of State, should follow their example.
Can anyone name one health board clinic where you can have privacy? Privacy, my foot, even in the most modern clinic in my county, people are herded like cattle, left sitting on stools in the hallway, right out to the front door, and there are no facilities for children, nor in many cases, for the staff. However, I do not think we can legislate against that. To provide proper facilities we would have to replace most of the health centres in every county, and to do that we would have to provide money. While I and the Labour Party support the idea of legislating for privacy in public offices, who will provide the money to achieve the aims of the Bill and provide proper facilities?
In other public offices, for example the ESB, social welfare recipients have to explain why they cannot pay their bill. While they explain their position everybody in the shop can hear the discussion. The ESB should not be allowed to get away with this because they would quickly cut off the electricity supply if a person cannot pay his bill. There may be a little sympathy for these people, but generally speaking if a person does not pay his bill his electricity supply will be disconnected. In fairness, I believe such an organisation should be obliged to provide the proper facilities for the general public. A person's telephone will be disconnected if he does not pay his bill. If you get a final notice or an arrears notice and you do not pay, suddenly you will find that your phone is dead. Yet, Telecom staff deal with queries in public. My point is that many organisations which have a multi-million pound turnover should be forced to provide the proper facilities for the general public, but we should not try to legislate for privacy for local authorities, health boards, social welfare offices and Garda stations.
For the past six years I have been trying to get the various Administrations to provide a Garda station in Drogheda to replace a building which has been standing for 200 years and which is totally unsuitable for the Garda and the general public who visit it, never mind the poor unfortunates who have to be locked up there from time to time. However, we have been unable to get that facility, and there is no sign of it coming. No matter what you would do with this 200 year old building, you will not have privacy because it would need to be replaced before you would have any semblance of privacy. I do not think that this can be incorporated into a Bill. I believe it will depend on individual Ministers to provide the money in their budgets — be it social welfare, the environment or whatever — for proper facilities for the staff and general public.
As I have said in my opening remarks, we agree with the idea that there should be improved facilities across the board for the general public, but I do not think we can legislate for that. Even if we do succeed in getting the Bill through, it can only be implemented if the Government of the day have the will to do so and provide the necessary funds.
With your permission, a Cheann Comhairle, I propose to share the last five or six minutes of my time with Deputy Kemmy.
Is that agreed? Agreed.
I am delighted to have an opportunity to speak on the Bill. Having listened to various speakers last evening and this evening decrying some aspects on the grounds of cost, I feel that the case made by the Deputies who have spoken indicated that they had a clear and adequate understanding of the necessity for the Bill. They all recognised that privacy is something that the public, the taxpayer, every citizen, is entitled to when discussing their problems. Everyone who spoke has admitted, in one way or another, that there is a need for a greater degree of privacy than exists at present in public offices be it the ESB, employment exchanges or whatever.
Much time has been given to the possible prohibitive costs. I submit that modern shop fitting has been developed to such an extent that it is possible to very effectively carry out minor alterations in various offices up and down the country which would provide much more privacy. Let us face it, no member of the public wants to go into a public office and discuss his personal problems in front of a long queue. That is a throwback from colonial times when a person sat at a table in the market square and a long queue tailed around the corner. The people in the queue were able to hear quite distinctly what was being discussed by the first person in the queue and they were able to titillate their imaginations with all the information they could glean from such encounters.
There have been numberous instances — although not in recent times, but over the past ten years — where people were able to glean information in employment exchanges, for example where they were able to hear social welfare numbers or PRSI numbers etc, and in a couple of cases were able to devise a system whereby they could cash other people's cheques. That should never happen. I am not blaming the officers involved because they could do nothing about it. It is a fact of life that people queued in such a manner that it was impossible for the person talking to the official to be able to carry on their business even in semi-privacy.
Nothwithstanding the costs referred to by other speakers, I was very disappointed that Government speakers, in particular, saw fit to denigrate the motives behind the introduction of the Bill. Surely as public representatives they must recognise that the one thing the public like is a little bit of privacy. After all they pay well for it. When the general public deal with public officials surely they have already paid for the privilege of privacy and of having their case dealt with in such a fashion that nobody can overhear them, that their business cannot be discussed outside and, in some cases, with beneficial effects to unwanted listeners.
I would have to point out that people differ. There are many people who by nature are timid and who find it difficult enough to pick up a telephone to discuss their business with an official in a public office or in a private office for that matter. In many cases people have to deal with an official through a grill on a counter or through a hatch on what appears to be a wall — which is a disgraceful way to deal with the public — and be interrogated, not because the person on the other side of the hatch is unnecessarily inquisitive or aggressive but because they need to obtain certain information. There is a tendency for someone who is under pressure with little time to obtain information to ask questions quickly. In this event some people will lose their nerve while others will break down. People who are nervous and timid will often refuse to even await interrogation in a semi-public office where everybody can hear their business.
Let me refer to the points made by Deputy Bell. Let us take the case of a deserted wife or single parent awaiting a social welfare cheque who goes along to the local health board clinic. They may be fortunate enough to have their query dealt with in a private or semi-private interview room. On the other hand it is possible that they may have to have their problem dealt with in the presence of up to a dozen people who can hear their business. At the very time they want most noise to be made in order to have some privacy silence descends on the place with the result that everyone knows their business. This can be very intimidating and a source of some annoyance for the people concerned.
I fail to understand why some speakers on the opposite side of the House regard the Bill as mischievous and say it will lead to unnecessary demands being made. Having paid for a service a person has the right to have his or her query dealt with in private. Some speakers said there is no need to introduce legislation to deal with this matter. If that is the case why have we not improved things far more than we have done during the past ten to 20 years? I accept that many public buildings are old and it is not possible to provide private or semi-private interview rooms. For that reason there would be no harm in introducing legislation. The cost of providing these facilities — to which I have already referred — is not prohibitive if we take into account the cost of acquiring new public offices. I am aware that greater care is now taken to ensure that some thought is given to this matter. Nonetheless shopfitters are capable of coming up with a suitable design.
Reference was also made to the local authorities. As a member of a local authority, as I am sure most Members of this House are, I have to say that they are much maligned organisations and have to put up with much abuse, hardship and misunderstandings. Very often they do not have the facilities which are both desirable and necessary.
In recent times, however, they have begun to realise that there is a necessity to discuss a person's loan arrears or rates arrears in some kind of inner sanctum, a bit like the inner sanctium in a bank. If you see a person going into the inner sanctum in a bank you know it can be for only one of two things. It is possible that the manager wants to extend his hand and welcome a person, or it is possible that he is being called in, as all of the onlookers and people in the queue well know, not to bid the time of day or to raise a toast but rather for a grilling in the grill room as it is known in some places. On coming out half an hour to 45 minutes later having been grilled, the other people waiting in the queue will know quite well that that unfortunate person has been put through the wringer. Any person who is in any way halfhearted having looked at the expression on that person's face will immediately turn and go home instead of going through the same process. We do not need a dual system but rather a system whereby each person receives equal treatment and a private audience for the want of a better term.
It is not beyond our capabilities to design something like that. I do not think it is unreasonable in this day and age for people to demand that their queries should be dealt with in private. It is true that banks probably have a vested interest in providing private facilities but this is only a recent development. There is much room for improvement and a need to provide cubicles along counters. While there are people who may be described as timid and others who mind their own business, there is another breed of people who love to glean information that is not theirs by right, who love to crane their necks to look over someone's shoulder to find out that vital piece of information, the bottom figure, the last sentence, for their own private titillation. Incidentally, the airports and banks have devised a system whereby one walks into a roped off area before being called. The problem with this system is that if one observes the rules and remains where one should remain until called, it is quite possible that someone could walk in and go right to the head of the queue and have no difficulty whatsoever. It is also possible that a second or third person will do likewise. I always think that someone feels a little bit stupid standing in a queue which ends in the middle of a room. To my mind it would be far better if an area was screened off where people could wait before being called.
Reference was also made to employment exchanges. There is no better time than the present to carry out the necessary improvements in employment exchanges. The facilities in many employment exchanges are totally inadequate to cater for even the smallest of crowds and totally inadequate to cater for the kind of numbers who now have to go to employment exchanges on a weekly basis. It is not possible to deal with people in private. For that reason there is an onus on us to provide decent employment exchanges and in doing so to avail of the opportunity to ensure that private interview rooms are provided so that the people who must use them on a daily basis can have some degree of privacy.
The same applies to our income tax offices. I accept that considerable improvements have been made in some of the new offices and I welcome them. However, in many of the old offices people queueing for attention can hear the conversations between officials and members of the public. I am not saying that those people make an effort to listen to those conversations but, because of their close proximity to the official and the member of the public, they cannot avoid hearing what is taking place. They can glean quite an amount of information from those conversations.
Section 4 refers to visual observation and the Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Deputy Connolly, wondered what that meant. I do not know what the draftsman had in mind when preparing that section but I have a good idea what he was thinking of. Close observation of an individual consulting an official at a counter can give people a considerable amount of entertainment. They get that entertainment from the expressions on the face of the person being interviewed, depending on the problem he or she has, and the reception he or she receives from the official. Eye contact with other members of the public can be very embarrassing for people being interviewed by officials about a private matter. Obviously, people will be embarrassed if during the course of such an interview they make eye contact with other people in the queue.
Members have suggested that the implementation of the provisions of the Bill would pose a security problem. I do not accept that. Security problems will arise regardless of whether the public are dealt with in public or private. The fact that there is a queue of 30 or 40 people waiting to be interviewed by an official does not mean that the official can feel secure or that the officials behind him are more secure. It does not mean that the money they may be in charge of is more secure. As has been illustrated in the banks it is easy to provide a high degree of security while at the same time giving a reasonable degree of privacy to the public. We should strive towards those objectives rather than be negative about our approach to this problem. We should not hark back to the olden times and insist on maintaining the old system. In those days people were not that interested in the business of their neighbours. Certainly, they respected the fact that their neighbour required privacy when dealing with officials.
Let us consider the position of a person seeking supplementary welfare benefit. That individual must make an application to the local health centre and then may have to pay a number of visits to that centre. He or she may be involved in a series of question sessions to prove eligibility. I do not propose to comment on the type of questions put to those people or the extent to which some officials are prepared to go to satisfy themselves as to the eligibility of applicants; that is a matter for another debate. If applicants cannot meet officials in a private room they will not be in a position to discuss their business in an any open way. I cannot understand how such people could tell the truth, because the truth may be embarrassing for them. An unfortunate person may have an embarassing fact to reveal which may be crucial in determining his or her eligibility to a benefit. That person should not have to disclose that information in front of people. It is demeaning if people are subject to such embarrassment.
All our citizens should be equal in the eyes of the State although I wonder on occasions if they are. Under our Constitution all children of the nation should be cherished equally but I do not think they are. Regardless of whether a person is rich or poor, fortunate or unfortunate, that person should be treated with respect and a degree of dignity when he or she seeks advice or information on their entitlements in a public office. They should be permitted to conduct their business in absolute privacy. If we do not provide them with those meagre facilities it is a sad state as we approach the end of the twentieth century. I do not think we have progressed in regard to these matters.
I will bring my contribution to a conclusion because I have agreed to share some of my time with Deputy Kemmy.
I was about to indicate to the Deputy that his time for generosity was running out because he is due to conclude at 8.15 p.m.
I had agreed to share my time but, unfortunately, I took a little longer than I intended.
Deputy Kemmy is a great man to encapsulate his thoughts but I know he would prefer to have ten minutes, if possible.
There is a need for these provisions which will help to concentrate the minds of those who have control over public offices on the need to provide proper facilities for interviews with members of the public. The cost involved will not be colossal but the public have a right to the facilities called for in the Bill. As legislators we have an obligation to provide the public with these desirable facilities. I appeal to Members on the Government side to reconsider their attitude to the Bill and recognise that those who must go to public offices daily will have greater regard for them, and for the House, if they see that we are united in our desire to deal with this problem.
Deputy Kemmy has seven minutes and we might give him an additional minute for his patience.
I should like to thank Deputy Durkan for sharing his time with me and to thank the Chair for his generosity in giving me one extra minute. I welcome the Bill which is long overdue. All human beings are entitled to be treated with dignity, care, consideration and compassion in any democratic society. We cannot bring any wealth, property or possessions with us when we depart from this world but while we are here we can do a lot to create a democratic, civilised and caring society. That is what politics should be about. We should do what we can to break down barriers and distinctions between people. We should treat all people fairly and equally. We should apply legal and social justice to every person, young and old, men and women, the employed and unemployed. This is what democracy is all about.
Sadly there is often a big gap between the ideal and the reality and we as public representatives are in a good position to know all about this reality because we visit all kinds of public offices every week in the course of our constituency work. Unfortunately, the old poor law mentality and attitude is conveyed in much of our social welfare and health legislation. More than 35 per cent of our population are in receipt of social welfare payments — this figure does not include farmers and business people who receive grants of all kinds — and about 17 per cent of all households are totally dependent on social welfare to survive. All too often we treat these recipients in far too narrow and selective a manner. The buildings those recipients are forced to use tell their own unfortunate story.
Far too many of our employment exchanges, health clinics, social welfare and community welfare offices, housing departments and other such public offices are shabby, seedy and generally run down in appearance. They are also badly designed. When they were being fitted out little consideration was given to individual privacy, dignity and comfort. By allowing the unemployed, the sick and other members of the public to use these buildings in their present condition we are showing them contempt rather than respect and dignity.
One shameful example of this is the Limerick employment exchange in Upper Cecil Street. This is one of the worst exchanges of its kind in Limerick and is a dreadful spectacle to behold. It is an old Victorian building which has long outlived its usefulness as a public office; it is nothing more than a large hovel. Every week long queues of people are forced to suffer unnecessarily and little or no dignity or privacy is available to people who have to use that office, or for that matter the staff who are forced to work in the building. The staff have protested a number of times during the past five years at the state of the building and indeed have taken industrial action on a number of occasions but to no avail.
During the last five years successive Governments have promised to provide a new employment exchange in Limerick but so far this exchange has not materialised. I appeal to the Minister in the House tonight to come to Limerick during the summer recess to inspect this Dickensian building and the shameful conditions which exist there. The Minister's father worked in Limerick for a long number of years and fortunately for him he did not have to use the building I have referred to during his time there. That building is a disgrace to our city and the sooner it is closed down as an employment exchange the better. I appeal to the Minister to do this immediately so as to relieve the suffering and hardship being experienced by the people in Limerick who have to use that employment exchange.
Our unemployed and the public generally deserve improved facilities in public offices. If we improve and upgrade the present facilities I believe the public will respond to the improvements in an appreciative and positive way. Of course, there will always be a small number of people who will behave in an anti-social way and abuse the new improved facilities but so far as I am concerned it would be the politics of despair if we allowed a small minority to dictate how a majority of people should be treated in this respect.
This principle should also apply across the board to all sections of the Department of Social Welfare, health boards, local authorities, ESB offices, post offices, Telecom Éireann offices, etc. In the course of his contribution Deputy Durkan referred to the new arrangements in post offices throughout the country where green ropes are strung around making the offices look like snakes' nests. Old people in particular are confused by these new arrangements. Deputy Durkan was quite right to make that point. I do not know who decided on the use of these ropes but they are confusing for many old people who go into post offices to draw their old age pensions and transact other business. Sometimes these people's eyesight is not the best. They are frail and feeble and they cause confusion by going to the head of the queue instead of to the end of it. Even young people are confused sometimes by the labyrinth of ropes. It should be possible to devise a more civilised and efficient way of dealing with the public in those offices.
Apart from improving and upgrading these facilities unemployed people are entitled to better treatment in other areas of life also. There is no good reason that the unemployed should not be allowed undertake full time educational courses while continuing to draw unemployment benefit or assistance. I must say that the Department of Social Welfare have allowed unemployed people in Limerick to undertake two pilot courses in order to continue their education. I applaud and welcome that initiative but it should be extended to the entire country. The courses should also be extended to cover subjects such as English literature, history, the study of languages and other such subjects. There is no reason we should not treat our unemployed in a dignified way. Education in that respect is no load; it is useful, will enhance their chances of getting employment and also enrich their lives. However, we do not have that broad a concept of education, and more is the pity.
In the matter of providing privacy and dignity for our unemployed and the public generally we can learn a lot from other countries such as Sweden and the Scandinavian countries. Some of these societies may be post-Christian but in terms of their Christian injunction to "love thy neighbour as thyself" we can learn a lot from them.
I am sorry to interrupt the Deputy but he is now dipping into the time of the Minister of State at the Department of Health. I think we can anticipate his agreement to let the Minister in.
The Deputy is very welcome to a minute or two. I am enjoying his contribution.
Thank you, Minister. To be unemployed and sick is bad enough but to humiliate people and to rob them of their privacy and dignity is to add insult to injury and, without taking it too far, to rub salt into their wounds. Going to an employment exchange for the first time can often be a traumatic, searing and lasting experience which can stay with one in an endurable way to the end of one's life. We in this House must do all we can to ensure that all our citizens are treated with dignity, and given privacy and care. For this reason I support the Bill.
This Bill proposes to confer a statutory right on any person, who has cause to engage in business of a personal, private, or confidential nature at any office covered by the Bill, to insist on such a discussion being held in a way which protects not merely against overhearing, but also against visual observation by other members of the public. While very few people would disagree with the general purpose behind the proposal the question arises as to whether it is necessary or indeed practicable to have legislation giving effect to this intent.
I want to make the point that the intention behind this Bill is already being met in practice is so far as is reasonably possible. There may, no doubt, be some difficulties particularly in small local offices in providing facilities for confidential interviews but legislation is not going to solve this. In the long run it boils down to the goodwill and the common sense of the official or officials involved in the interview, and this is certainly not a matter which can be legislated for. In fact in the circumstances the Opposition should withdraw the Bill. It is absolutely unnecessary and I am rather surprised that a Bill has been put forward as opposed to a motion which would be a form of recommendation to State and semi-State organisations.
The Bill would also give rise to honest differences of interpretation as to what is or is not of a personal, private or confidential nature. While the Bill proposes that guidelines be drawn up by the Minister for Finance I cannot envisage how such guidelines can include a definition of what is a "personal, private or confidential matter". As I have said already, it must be left to the good sense of the officials to take whatever steps are practical to ensure that interviews on matters of such a nature are conducted as discreetly and successfully as possible.
I have many reservations about whether it is practical to legislate against visual observation by other members of the public. While it may be possible to protect against visual observation while an interview is in progress, it is not possible to protect against visual observation of the location in which such interview is being held. A doctor's waiting room is one example.
Coming to my own area, that of health, I should say the services provided under the Health Acts are wide in scope covering, at some time or another, every citizen of the State through the seven ages of man from infancy to old age. Some matters concern income maintenance schemes administered by health board officials; others are concerned with eligibility for medical services; while others still concern medical or social problems, many of which require urgent attention.
In so far as my Department are concerned, the office of the General Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths is the principal office at which members of the public attend for services which are located at Joyce House. The main requests are for copies of birth, death or marriage certificates. These services are dealt with at public counters and, in the main, are of a routine but not confidential nature. At certain times throughout the year there will be a considerable queue of people waiting to obtain these certificates. If each applicant had to be received in a private office it would delay the process quite considerably. However, there are occasions when requests of a confidential or sensitive nature arise, particularly in relation to birth certificates for children of unmarried persons and marriage certificates, but facilities are available for private discussion. Officials of my Department are always willing and available to provide such facilities when required to do so.
Similarly in relation to the Department in general, any confidential matters a caller to the Department may wish to discuss — whether by way of complaint or otherwise — may be discussed with an official in complete privacy. As the House will be aware, the offices of the Department have been amalgamated in one building, that is, Hawkins House. Indeed, I recall that there was some criticism of the amount of expenditure incurred in adapting the relevant floors in Hawkins House in order to accommodate the Department. I make the point that a not inconsiderable proportion of that expenditure was necessitated by the provision of the type of facilities envisaged in this Bill. I refer in particular to the accommodation for the Adoption Board which, while not part of the Department, nevertheless comes within their aegis, is accommodated in Hawkins House also and had particular requirements for privacy and confidentiality which have been met.
Going further afield to the health agencies, It must be accepted that health boards with offices located throughout the country deal with the vast bulk of callers concerned with medical or social matters administered by those boards. It is accepted that many of these matters are of a private, personal and confidential nature ranging, as they do, from eligibility for services to supplementary welfare allowances, physical and mental health problems, the boarding out of children, child abuse, substance abuse and numerous other medical and social problems. Business which might be termed of a routine nature with members of the public arising from the foregoing are dealt with at public counters or hatches, but facilities are available for dealing with matters of a sensitive or confidential nature. I have never yet received a complaint from a member of the public or a constituent with regard to lack of sensitivity on the part of health board officials in relation to private or confidential matters they had wished to discuss with them. I would be very surprised if such a problem arose.
My Department are satisfied that the existing arrangements for dealing with such confidential matters are adequate. It must be appreciated that, having regard to the large number of places of different types — ranging from hospitals to local offices, to health centres and so on — at which health services are administered and discussions held with members of the public, it would be impossible to implement a rigid, statutory approach as to what measures should be taken when dealing with discussions of a confidential or private nature.
As I said earlier, in the long run it boils down to the common sense of the officials involved. In this context I might refer to section 4 (2) of the Bill which I regard as extremely vague and wide open to misinterpretation. For example, it is proposed that it should be left to the discretion of the public officials concerned to determine what is and what is not routine.
On a more general note, I do not see anything in the proposed Bill to deal with failure to comply with its provisions. The only regulations mentioned in the Bill are for the purpose of providing appeals by individuals in relation to its provisions. It is not possible to implement such totally unnecessary provisions.
I am concerned also at the proposal contained in section 2 (2) of the Bill that the provisions of the Bill may be extended, by order, to include offices run by private organisations but providing a public service. Presumably the voluntary organisations providing health or health-related services would fall into that category. They would include the voluntary hospital, organisations for mentally handicapped and physically handicapped, for various social services and so on. While we provide extensive funding for such agencies, in so far as possible we are anxious to avoid overloading them with bureaucratic administrative procedures. In common with the statutory health agencies it is safe to say that these voluntary organisations conduct their client-patient interviewing in accordance with the best confidentiality criteria. I might add also that Deputies themselves in conducting clinics in their constituencies may encounter grave difficulty in complying with the provisions of this Bill. With all the facilities available in their constituency offices it may still be found difficult to provide facilities that would afford 100 per cent privacy or confidentiality. Of course the provisions of the Bill would have to be extended to such offices also and I do not believe they could comply with the regulations thereunder.
I am satisfied that the arrangements obtaining within the health area for dealing with confidential matters are adequate. Because of that and bearing in mind the cumbersome, time-consuming procedures proposed in this Bill — not to mention the considerable expenditure which may be involved — I am firmly of the opinion that a statutory framework to govern such matters is not warranted.
Deputies generally voiced the request that, where possible, officials dealing with the general public should provide private accommodation whenever confidential matters are being discussed. We would all support that principle. The point was made also by Deputies on the other side of the House with particular relevance to financial institutions. We are aware that the facilities available in banking institutions are of a semi-private, confidential nature. Some institutions are now taking the person to person approach, removing counters and providing desks at which officials can sit down with their clients to discuss confidential matters. However, the fact is that the public are more anxious to get on with their business and have a free movement of people through the banking institutions. I do not think they would be very favourably disposed towards the provisions of a Bill which would in any way delay that procedure.
At the beginning of the debate Deputy Barnes suggested that in public offices the public should be dealt with by senior officials, mature people with a sense of wisdom, compassion and experience of life, that the burden of dealing with people in a distressed state should not lie on the shoulders of young, inexperienced and unskilled junior clerical staff. The Deputy also suggested that skilled staff should be available to deal with angry or frustrated callers. The general position in public offices is that members of the public are dealt with by front line junior officials but if necessary senior staff are always on hand and available for consultation. It would be impractical to have an arrangement whereby senior staff should deal with all cases, many of which will be straightforward and well within the competence of junior officials.
In May 1986 the then Department of the Public Service issued guidelines to all Departments on the selection and training of staff in public offices. Those guidelines are still in force. Among other things they require Departments to ensure that staff on public office duties have a thorough understanding of the work about which queries are raised. They are trained in all aspects of customer relations and services before taking up duty. Indeed, one aspect of that request at the time was that officials should provide their names to members of the public who would not have to deal with a person at the end of a telephone but a named person at the end of a telephone. I am very happy that that was brought in at that time.
In my Department, the Department of Health, I would be totally in favour of all officials providing their names to the caller so that the person can return a call to them and have the call dealt with by that person. As public representatives we always consider it useful to be able to contact a person in a Department with whom we can communicate and who will know the issue so that we do not have to repeat the problem.
A useful debate is taking place so far as the facilities are concerned. In the circumstances it would be advisable that the Bill should be withdrawn to allow it to filter through the public service that the Dáil recommends to public servants that they would provide facilities.
Debate adjourned.