Vol. 435 No. 9
136 Mr. R. Bruton asked the Minister for Finance the plans, if any, he has to extend the remit of the Ombudsman; and his views on whether companies such as Bord Gáis and the ESB should be subject to scrutiny by the Ombudsman in the same way as Telecom Éireann and An Post.
The only two commercial State-sponsored bodies which fall within the Ombudsman's remit are An Post and Telecom Éireann. The inclusion of these two bodies within his ambit is largely explicable by two factors (1) that the services which they provided had previously come within the Ombudsman's purview when carried out by the Department of Posts and Telegraphs and (2) an exceptional public demand for the Ombudsman's services in these areas.
I have no plans to extend the Ombudsman's remit to commercial State-sponsored bodies generally. As I explained in response to a similar parliamentary question put down by Deputy Jim O'Keeffe, which I answered on 31 March of this year, unless I became aware of significant levels of dissatisfaction among customers with the existing consumer redress mechanisms provided by such bodies, I would not see any need to consider seriously including them within the ambit of the Ombudsman. In the case of the bodies mentioned by the Deputy, I am not aware of any such difficulties.
