I am very grateful for the opportunity to appear before the committee. This is the presentation of my first annual report on what was a significant year for the office with the extension of its remit following the enactment of the Ombudsman (Amendment) Bill. With the permission of the committee, I will take the opportunity to talk about some current issues and some of those affecting my vision for the future of my office. My predecessor, Ms Emily O'Reilly, was responsible for the conduct of the office for much of the year covered by the report. I began in December. I pay tribute to Ms O’Reilly for her stewardship of the office and the very successful period during which she was responsible for it.
The office received more than 3,000 complaints in 2013. To a large extent, they followed the pattern one would have expected. The largest number of complaints involved the Department of Social Protection. As the Department has a very high level of engagement with members of the public, it is no surprise that it should feature so significantly. Other bodies in respect of which large numbers of complaints were received included the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and the Revenue Commissioners. Complaints concerning local authorities amounted to 495. This is no great surprise, given the extent of their engagement with members of the community. There were 310 complaints against the HSE. I will say rather more about the complaints against the HSE as I proceed.
Nearly 200 additional public bodies were brought within the jurisdiction of the office. Probably the most significant of these in terms of complaints was Student Universal Support Ireland, SUSI, in respect of which we received 150 complaints. It is well documented that it had some difficulties in the early part of its work. We found it good to work with and it made significant changes in response to the concerns raised by my office. We hope to see a reduction in the volume of substantiated complaints at least in the year ahead.
There was nothing strange or startling in the distribution of complaints among the Civil Service, local authorities and the HSE. Of the complaints received, 5.8% were related to third level education bodies. The balance was made up of complaints about a number of miscellaneous bodies. Speaking of the HSE, it has been a surprise to me that the volume of complaints about care and treatment has been so low. However, there are restrictions on my jurisdiction which may affect this. A very high proportion of complaints concerned financial matters. Medical cards are a recent topical example. I am surprised at the low numbers of complaints about care and treatment and intend to examine this in further detail this year. I do not believe the level of complaints reflects people's experience of the health service and I do not believe it is because the quality of health care is so good that there are few complaints to be made. Something is causing complaints to fail to find their way to my office, whether it is signposting or people simply being exhausted by the process of complaining. It is an area I will examine in some detail in the course of the current year.
In addition to dealing with formal complaints, staff from the office dealt with nearly 11,600 queries. This is a huge level of contact. Some of the contacts, as members might guess, are for other ombudsmans' services. People might come to us when they have a complaint more appropriate to GSOC, the Ombudsman for Children or even the financial ombudsman. We are quite proficient at helping complainants to find the right place to complain. Some cases concern people who have complained to my office before they have made their complaint to the body the subject of the said complaint. Dealing with these is a very significant part of the work of the office.
Members will have had the opportunity to read about some of the significant cases resolved. There was a very tragic case of a woman suffering from cancer who attended St. Vincent's University Hospital at Elm Park. She did not receive the follow-up diagnosis she should have. She was properly treated for a heart condition from which she was suffering but did not really have time to understand the diagnosis of cancer that she should have received. An apology was issued to the family for the poor treatment she had received prior to her death.
A case that is very topical in the current climate concerned the State Examinations Commission providing assistance for a student at short notice. I am aware of at least one case in the current round in which a student has received support as a consequence of the involvement of my office. Clearly, the normal timescales cannot apply because people do not want a report after the event. They actually need an intervention before it. We do not have time for investigations, but we are able to draw concerns to the attention of the examinations commission. On occasion, we can have its decision overturned in time for people to receive support during the examination.
There was a case in which a woman was incorrectly refused invalidity pension twice by the Department of Social Protection. While ours is not a compensation body or one which seeks to levy fines, where people have been denied benefits to which they were entitled or have lost out financially, it is our job to try to put them back in the position in which they would have been. In the instance in question, the arrears totalled more than €90,000, which is significant. We were very pleased to be able to resolve that case.
The final individual case I wish to consider involved a local authority imposing a time limit for local residency contrary to regulations within its housing allocations policy. It was not entitled to do so and a person was wrongly denied housing as a result. We were able to have that decision reversed. Importantly, we were also able to ensure other local authorities were not doing the same and that other people in County Laois who might have been similarly affected would not be affected in that way in the future.
It is that aspect of the office. It is not just about providing recompense for an individual but is also about making sure that systemic learning takes place. It is one of the key differences between the Office of the Ombudsman and some of the other routes to redress that might be available.
It is important to say something about the mobility allowance and motorised transport grants, to which this committee has given considerable attention. I am a bit concerned there has been some delay in finding a replacement for those schemes which were clearly in breach of the law. I am sure those are issues that the committee will wish to continue to pursue. I know it intends reporting at some point to the Dáil and I hope that it will be able to do that soon and that the replacement scheme which has been promised will be put in place. We were able to gain redress for some of the people in Donegal who we felt had missed out. The HSE agreed with that and we were able to find redress for them. The real concern I have is that people who might have been eligible for the schemes are missing out because there is no scheme.
Discretionary medical cards are another topic I want to address. We have been looking at the situation in respect of them and have received quite a number of complaints - 70 at one stage. I believe there are 40 currently within the office and I do not doubt that they will continue to come in although the recent decision to suspend the review is an important one.
I will make a couple of points. When we looked at the cases, we found that people had been awarded the discretionary cards originally but the files specifying the basis upon which they had been awarded those cards were no longer available. When one was comparing the decision not to award a card today, it was impossible to say whether the same things had been taken into consideration when the medical card was originally granted. We have a concern about process and the fairness of that process. We also found that with regard to the decision not to award a card, the decision of the medical officers was often simply recorded as a tick in a box and no explanation was given as to why having taken the circumstances of the individual into account, discretion had not been exercised. Again, that was a matter of considerable concern to us. We now have agreement that should the situation continue, at least an explanation will be given as to why the decision was taken. Those are issues relating to the decision to award a card or not.
One of the problems that people faced when they found they were being reviewed was that they often had medical cards with quite a long expiry date yet they found that they were being reviewed and the cards withdrawn long before the expiry date. One of the important learning points arising from this is that it is vital that the HSE explains to individuals with medical cards that they are subject to review, regardless of what the new arrangements for review are in the future. In light of all of the circumstances, when the consultation comes forward on whatever changes are made to the scheme, my office will have quite a lot to say in respect of how that scheme should be administered in the future to avoid the perceptions of unfairness that have undoubtedly been part of the recently suspended review.
One issue I spoke to the committee about when I first took up office was the issue of case books and issuing detailed information about all of the cases that are decided by my office and not just those that feature in the annual report or that become subject to public reports. I have not put it in my speaking notes but I should say that we are making good progress. As the committee is aware, we have to record a summary of each case that is examined in order for those summaries to be aggregated into a case book. That work is under way and I expect the first issue of the case book to be in the committee members' in-boxes in the autumn so I am very pleased that progress is being made on that. That was a commitment I gave to the committee when I last spoke to it.
I have also expressed my concern about issues around the privatisation of services and the way in which redress is dealt with. In particular, what brought it to my mind was the issue of Irish Water. In my other capacity as Information Commissioner, I was very pleased to note that Irish Water was brought into my jurisdiction so that people could ask for information. However, when Irish Water was transferred away from local authorities, access to my office in respect of complaints was lost and as yet, there is no formal route to redress for anyone with a complaint about Irish Water. My contention is that it should not been removed from my jurisdiction. There is no reason the route to redress should change because the provider is changing. There is an opportunity with the EU alternative dispute resolution directive to rethink how redress relating to services that have been privatised is offered.
It is very difficult to know how anybody might seek redress for failures in waste collection. Clearly, my view, as one would expect, is that access to independent redress via an Ombudsman for people using public services should be a sine qua non. There should be no discussion about it and I am disappointed that in some ways, it has inadvertently been lost. There was no reference to redress in the legislation that introduced Irish Water except in respect of water quality, which is a separate technical issue. Complaints about things like the installation of meters and billing, which could have come to my office when it was a local authority function, are now simply suspended until new legislation is introduced to address them so that is a concern of mine.
I am also still very keen to work with this committee, the Government and public bodies on the introduction of a standardised means of complaining about public services. There is a plethora of ways to complain and there is no clear indication as to why there is such variation. It just brings about confusion for members of the public. I would like to see it addressed and will continue to work to bring proposals forward to that effect. Making it easy to complain is one of the things that is quite important. We all believe that the public should have access to individual redress but we also know that people's complaints help us to identify where there are problems with public services and to make sure those are put right. The other idea of a single complaints portal based around the concept of Healthcomplaints.ie is one thing I would like to see brought forward in the future.
The importance of the independence of the Office of the Ombudsman cannot be underestimated. If people are to have confidence, they must believe the Ombudsman is independent of the bodies in its jurisdiction. Constitutional status would be a very good way not just of demonstrating that independence but securing it in a very meaningful and important fashion in the same way as the Comptroller and Auditor General is a constitutional office. I hope that this might be brought forward in the future. As I said at the beginning, my engagement with this committee - this relationship with the Oireachtas rather than with the Administration - is one of the very significant aspects of the independence of the Office of the Ombudsman and I am very glad to have had the opportunity to present the report to the committee today. I look forward to questions and a discussion.
