I move:
That Seanad Éireann notes the Annual Report of the Ombudsman 1995.
Annual Report of the Ombudsman, 1995: Motion.
I am pleased to present the 12th Annual Report of the Ombudsman for the year 1995 to the House. Since its inception in 1984, the Office of the Ombudsman has come to play a very important role in the Irish system of public administration. Many State bodies are, of necessity, complex organisations which citizens tended to see as forbidding bureaucracies, not as their servants. That perception is changing. In this process of change the Ombudsman is clearly the champion of the citizen. Over the years he has changed the way we think about the role of the State in ordinary people's lives. His work has transformed for the better the relationship between public bodies and the public.
The expectations of the public for better services are higher than ever. The improvement of customer service is a key aim of policy in the private and public sectors. Organisations throughout the public service have learned from the initiatives undertaken by the banks, building societies and retailers in the private sector. I am not sure if there is a precedent for Ministers of State to give a "plug" to individual Senators, but Senator Quinn deserves credit for his part in raising awareness of the importance of the customer in recent years. Semi-State bodies, too, have made immense improvements in customer care. The Civil Service has been alive to these developments and many Departments implemented customer service initiatives in recent years. This undoubtedly helps to explain the significant reduction in the number of complaints received within the jurisdiction in 1995 compared with the 1994 figure: down from 2,489 cases to 2,250 cases.
I am committed to the promotion of excellence in the provision of public services. As a Minister of State, one of my key roles is to ensure there is continuous progress towards the highest standards of customer service. As the Ombudsman, Kevin Murphy, put it succinctly: "The citizens of this country are entitled to expect that they will be dealt with properly, fairly and impartially by our public service." I agree and I mean to deliver promptly on that wish list of the Ombudsman.
At the beginning of May, the Taoiseach launched the next phase of the Strategic Management Initiative set out in Delivering Better Government. The key messages to the citizen in Delivering Better Government are that the programme of renewal in the administration of public services will deliver excellent services to the various customers of the Civil Service; will put in place the appropriate legislative systems, human resource management and financial management systems to support the delivery of these excellent services; and will ensure that authority, responsibility and accountability rest in the appropriate places.
Work on the implementation of the ambitious programme of change set out in Delivering Better Government is progressing rapidly. A substantial body of new legislation is being drafted. The new co-ordinating group has been established to monitor developments and progress. The first of its monthly meetings was held on 24 June. The key working groups being set up to develop programmes of action will be in place shortly. Delivering Better Government means what it says.
When I speak of improving the quality of customer service, I mean developing within the public service a set of procedures for best practice in the administration and delivery across the whole range of public services. In terms of public administration, who do we mean when we speak about the "customer"? We mean, of course, every citizen who demands, or has a need for, the services provided by public sector organisations funded by his or her taxes, social insurance, fees and other contributions. We mean that every person availing of a service delivered by a public sector organisation has the right to the same level of courtesy, efficiency and effectiveness as he or she will demand in any market.
When one pays cash for a commodity or service in the market place one wants quality of service and value for money. Second best is not good enough. Just because one pays for most of one's public services indirectly through taxation is no reason one should have to tolerate anything but the highest standards. All of us involved in preparing the action statements in Delivering Better Government, Ministers and officials, have set ourselves the highest standards. We mean to deliver.
The concept of "the customer" is multidimensional. In the case of licence applications, the customer may be the applicant, but "the customer" may also be an individual or group objecting to the granting of a licence for particular reasons. Given this complexity, balance and impartiality are core values inherent in good public administration. The importance of the Ombudsman in supervising Departments is underlined by this complexity and by the sheer mass of detail in modern systems of public administration.
Of course, the presence of the Ombudsman does not obviate the need for Departments to put in place their own internal systems of checks and reviews. These must be supplemented, where appropriate, by suitable appeal mechanisms. Already, accounting officers must comply with the provisions of the Comptroller and Auditor General (Amendment) Act, 1993, as regards value for money, and appropriate systems for this are in place. It is essential that internal systems are developed to review the principles of good administration. The Ombudsman, in a diagnostic capacity, will supervise these systems.
In his first report as Ombudsman in 1994, Kevin Murphy highlighted the principles of good administration which public bodies should apply in exercising their powers. I am glad that he expands on these principles in chapter 2 of the 1995 report. This chapter should be compulsory reading for everyone involved in the administration of public services. A criticism often levelled at management initiatives, justifiably in many instances, is that they are jargon led and theory bound with little scope for practical application. In this chapter, however, the relevance of the principles of good administration is demonstrated simply and effectively.
Proportionality is one of the central principles of good public administration. This principle places an obligation on public bodies, in the exercise of discretionary power, to maintain a proper balance between the adverse effect of their decisions on citizens and the purpose being pursued by those bodies. It is of particular interest in cases where a body must decide between the rights of an individual and the common good. It is an established feature of administrative law in other member states of the European Union and of the Union itself. It is becoming a feature of Irish law and has been employed by the courts as a means of judging whether the restrictions imposed by legislation on the exercise of any given legal right are excessive. However, the Ombudsman notes that some public bodies tend to administer their schemes and programmes in a rigid manner. Minor breaches of conditions tend to attract the same penalties as major breaches. The principle of proportionality is not given sufficient recognition.
Examples involving the principle of proportionality in the report concern the Departments of Social Welfare and Agriculture, Food and Forestry. The social welfare cases relate to loss of entitlement arising from late claims. Substantial arrears — up to £40,000 and eight years in one case — are at issue. The report of the Ombudsman suggests that the penalty — the loss of arrears — is not in proportion to the 'fault' — the late application. The Department of Social Welfare is now reviewing its position. Similarly, the agriculture case relates to the loss of a milk subsidy of £5,000 due to late submission of claims. Once again, the Ombudsman suggested that the penalty was not proportionate to the infringement of the scheme. The Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry accepted this view and agreed to pay the subsidy.
Improving customer service is a complex process. It involves, not least, a change in the way business is done and in the very culture of the public service. A reformation is now under way in Irish public administration. The term "reformation" is probably apposite given that 1996 is the 450th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther, the architect of the Reformation in the Church in the 16th century. Members will note that there are some good researchers in my Department. We have not nailed our theses to the door of Leinster House——
I thought the Minister of State's researchers were flogging the point.
——but our commitment to change and renewal is real. It is important that this process of renewal takes place within a framework that facilitates positive change. In this regard, the Government has not been found wanting. Successful reform must be rooted in legislation. Our proposals for legislative reform are set out in A Government of Renewal.
The fundamental legislation dealing with the classification of the functions of central Government in the State through the various Departments of state is the Ministers and Secretaries Act, 1924, which is the basic legal framework for the organisation and allocation of responsibilities of the Civil Service. The preparation of a Government memorandum and general scheme of a Bill to amend the Ministers and Secretaries Act is at an advanced stage. It is hoped that this will be published in early autumn. The draft Bill provides for a new management structure reflecting the key elements agreed by the Co-ordinating Group of Secretaries. It includes provision for the devolution of authority, responsibility and accountability within Government Departments to ensure that public service administration is carried out in the most effective and efficient manner. The Compellability, Privileges and Immunities of Witnesses Bill is designed to improve the effectiveness of Dáil Committees and is awaiting Committee Stage.
In the context of the Office of the Ombudsman, there are two key legislative proposals — the Ombudsman (Amendment) Bill and the proposed Administrative Procedures Bill. The Ombudsman (Amendment) Bill will extend the remit of that office to cover non-commercial State bodies and voluntary hospitals. In general, a body that receives 50 per cent or more of its funding from the State will come within the jurisdiction of the Ombudsman. I have arranged for my Department to put proposals before Government shortly.
The proposed Administrative Procedures Bill is at an earlier stage of development and will be designed to ground in legislation the stated aim of improving customer service by setting down core entitlements of citizens. It will make legislative provision guaranteeing a specified level of service to citizens in their dealings with State bodies by providing specifically for minimum response times to a citizen's case, the level of guidance to be given to the public and the form in which decisions are to be communicated to the customer. The latter provision will dovetail with the relevant provisions of the forthcoming freedom of information legislation as regards the right of access of citizens to all relevant information on a case. The Ombudsman will have a key role to play in the implementation of this proposed Act which will vest in that office monitoring and regulatory functions aimed at securing compliance with the principles of good administration.
I note with interest that the Ombudsman now has a presence in the south east, albeit not in County Wexford. Nevertheless, I was pleased to see the opening of a service in Waterford in 1995 with the co-operation of the National Social Service Board. This is part of the office's drive to improve public access and awareness which saw visits from its staff to Roscommon, Longford, Athlone and Tullamore, in tandem with its presence in Cork and Limerick, and a joint venture with the Tallaght Partnership which saw the opening of a new service in Tallaght.
I thank the Cathaoirleach for inviting me to present the Annual Report of the Ombudsman for 1995. May I, on your behalf and that of the Government and the wider public, thank the Ombudsman, Mr. Kevin Murphy, and his staff for their valuable contribution to Irish public administration and congratulate them on the well produced report.
In the interests of equity, could we agree to limit contributions to eight instead of ten minutes because the Order of Business was very indulgent?
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
Is that agreed? Agreed.
I will do my best to remain within the time constraints. I welcome the Ombudsman to the House. There are few Members of the Oireachtas who are greater advocates of the concept of the Office of the Ombudsman than myself. I became a members of the International Ombudsman Institute as long ago as 1978. Having participated in the early debates on the creation of an Ombudsman's office in Ireland, I am personally disappointed at the impact that office has had during the ten years it has been in operation. Profound political timidity and administrative hostility, from the day the concept was first mooted in the 1960s, has stymied the growth and development of that institution within our administrative system.
In the decade since it was created, the Office of the Ombudsman has become well established and has been accepted by the people. The horrific pronunciations about its incapacity to dovetail with the Irish administrative system have proven to be utter nonsense. There have, however, been a number of profound disappointments during the past ten years. I note the Minister of State's contribution and the contents of the current and previous reports of the Ombudsman, but I remain disappointed at the impact the office has had in Ireland.
My first disappointment relates to the fact that the office continues to record a relatively low annual intake of cases within jurisdiction. I do not accept the Minister of State's observation that the decline in cases held by or taken to the Ombudsman's office is a welcome development. The case is quite the opposite. Every Senator, Deputy and public representative is aware that there has not been a massive decline in complaints about public administration. As increases in staff in ministerial offices has proven, there has been an alarming increase in the level of complaints about public administration. I am dismayed that there has been a further decline, as there has been in each of the past five years, in the number of cases within jurisdiction by the Ombudsman's office. I will return to this point later.
The second major disappointment is that the positive impact on Ireland's political life, which I and other enthusiastic supporters of the concept of the Ombudsman's office hoped for, has not materialised. When the Ombudsman's office was created it was fondly hoped that it would have a profound impact on political life, but this is not the case. At that time it was felt that Deputies and public representatives were spending too much time acting as highly paid messenger boys and fixing minor administrative problems for constituents. Exponents of the Office of the Ombudsman argued with great vehemence that the creation of a strong independent complaints mechanism would provide citizens with their own advocate and release public representatives to focus more on policy and less on administration.
In the past 25 years there has been an exponential increase in the level of constituency case load handled by public representatives in both Houses and at all levels of public life. If that is so, why are we recording a decline in the cases handled by the Ombudsman? Every public representative knows there has not been a downturn in case load handling. Councillors, Senators, TDs and even Ministers must invest more of time in minor administrative issues than in the early 1980s when the Ombudsman debate got under way. I undertook a survey of 115 TDs in 1980 and 1981 which proved that they handled four or five times more cases than public representatives in any other Parliament. That figure has increased dramatically in the past ten years.
Shortly before the Ombudsman's office was created I pointed out that the system of complaint behaviour and the tradition of approaching every public representative in an area with administrative complaints was having a profound impact on administrative and political life. The situation is now worse than ever. The office of Ministers are packed with staff handling constituency work and there has been a profound increase in the number involved in such work. TDs and Senators still devote the bulk of their time and energy to administrative minutiae. The public is, if anything, more frustrated with our Administration and more cynical about political life.
If reform is to be effected, the Ombudsman's office should handle an increased proportion of administrative complaints but the opposite is the case. The number of complaints in the Ombudsman's jurisdiction is showing an alarming rate of decline. This is not because the number of complaints about public administration are declining or the administration is coping with more complaints. The reasons are more complex.
It is clear the office is suffering from a lack of publicity, an extraordinarily restricted jurisdiction and from being the subject of budgetary and staffing constraints which have been exercised by the Administration which the Ombudsman is meant to control. Before I went mad and became involved in politics and when the Ombudsman proposals were first circulated, I pointed out there was something bizarre about the Ombudsman Act proposed by a Fianna Fáil Administration in 1984 and something profoundly wrong with the Ombudsman not being created as an independent office with full exercise over its budget and with a budget which was an extension of that of an independent Parliament. I do not blame this Administration; I accept full responsibility for my party.
It is imperative that the Ombudsman's office is properly funded and staffed and has the resources to create the type of publicity which keeps its operations continuously and alertly in the public eye. The Ombudsman's office must have the staff to go continuously on circuit and to bring its services to the people. It does not have enough of these resources at present. Advertising is less a feature of the Irish Ombudsman's operation than in most other cases. On circuit visits by the Ombudsman's staff are limited to six or seven per year, which is not good enough. That is not a criticism of the Ombudsman or the staff but of our failure to provide successive Ombudsmen with funds needed to properly execute the office.
The Ombudsman's office was almost strangled at birth by administrative hostility and political timidity. It was given the most restricted jurisdiction of any Ombudsman in developed countries. In 1984 80 Statutes were examined for comparisons with the Irish Ombudsman Act. Our Act was found to be the most restrictive of all except the one which set up the British parliamentary commissioner. Remarkably, areas of administration have been withdrawn from the Ombudsman's jurisdiction in recent years. I cannot find another case where an Ombudsman has had his jurisdiction restricted. Again, it happened during various Administrations of different political hue.
The Ombudsman cannot examine the activities of the bulk of the commercial State sponsored bodies. He is excluded from examining complaints about non commercial State sponsored bodies, although I acknowledge that will change. He is confined to examining complaints about administrative matters in the health boards and cannot, for example, examine clinical mistakes and incompetence. The Ombudsman cannot handle a variety of issues which were excluded by the fact that the concept of maladministration, as outlined in the Ombudsman Act, is a restrictive one.
Ours is truly a fettered Ombudsman and it is time the office was unfettered. In the policy document A Government of Renewal an extension of the powers and the remit of the office of the Ombudsman were promised. The Minister said the legislation is well under way for redrafting, but we have not seen it to date. I am disappointed that is the case, although I do not blame the Minister. While noting what she said, more must be done. I suggest the Ombudsman Act should be reviewed and that its all too many defects should be rectified.
When the New Zealand Ombudsman was set up in the early 1960s there were reasons within our administrative system to be deeply concerned about the capacity of the office to fit into the administrative culture, but there are no such reasons or fears now. I suggest that if the Houses of the Oireachtas truly care for an independent Ombudsman's Office to serve the people as they should be served, we should re-establish the Joint Committee on Administrative Justice and sit down with this Ombudsman and his predecessors to write an Act to take us into the next century.
I suggest that we continue until 4.05 p.m. to allow everyone to speak.
We could continue until 4.15 p.m.
There are problems with that.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
How long will the Minister have to reply?
She will have two minutes to reply at 4.05 p.m.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
Is that agreed? Agreed.
I was very taken with the Minister's speech. I welcome the proposals to extend the remit of the office by including non-commercial State sponsored bodies and voluntary hospitals. I listened with interest to Senator Roche's contribution. As he said, he speaks with passion on this subject and he possesses a great depth of information. I take seriously all of what he said, although I do not agree with some of it. My view is somewhat different. Senator Roche was probably right when he said the Ombudsman's office needs greater publicity to ensure its activities are more widely known and I accept that is a budgetary restraint.
I agree the Act needs to be reviewed and that now is a good time given that it is ten or 12 years since it was enacted. If Senator Roche is interested, I will make time available for a longer and less constrained debate in the autumn. Many of the complaints he made about the office of the Ombudsman are probably deeply rooted in our electoral system and the insane competition which it promotes and which it makes de rigueur. Many of the symptoms which he outlined owe more to that than any failing on the part of the Ombudsman's office.
The Ombudsman's office has been one of the great successes of public life over the past ten or 12 years. Part of its success has been that it has moved at the right pace; it has not moved ahead of the possibilities for change. It has been incremental in the way it has added to the scope of its activities and I hope it will continue to absorb change at a pace which it is able to accommodate. It is an experiment which has worked and there is no cost to those involved. The office is accessible and its fairness is beyond dispute. People can avoid the awesome and costly prospect of going to court. The office eliminates the need for administrative tribunals and it is simple, private and informal.
Since the establishment of the Ombudsman's office I have not heard a complaint about the way people have been treated or about a lack of fairness or openness. That is the greatest tribute we can pay to that office. Its independence is beyond doubt. It was established at a time when the culture in which it operated was deeply hostile. Many civil servants saw the office as something to get at them. However, it has successfully won the confidence of civil servants — perhaps they are more open now than when it was established. Civil servants do not see themselves at the receiving end of Star Chamber treatment. They expect to get as fair a hearing as the complainant. That balance is essential, it was there from the beginning and owes a great deal to the two Ombudsmen to date.
The debt owed to Michael Mills is enormous. He put a human face on the office and gave it a sense of credibility. He was a crusader as far as the office was concerned and it will always stand as a monument to him.
I was critical about the appointment of Mr. Kevin Murphy, not because of his personality which I made clear when I spoke on the debate on his appointment a little more than a year ago, but because he came from the Civil Service and the question was whether a civil servant would be a credible person. I have no intention of praising Mr. Murphy behind his back when I can do it to his face. I was not wrong in that I did not cast any aspersion on him personally, but I was wrong to the extent that I criticised the appropriateness of his appointment. He has been impeccable and innovative and he is the right person to steer the office and guide it in the coming years. It is important that I say that having voiced my earlier criticisms.
The manner in which we treat aliens, people who apply for naturalisation, is an area that might be considered for inclusion within the remit of the Ombudsman. It is a murky area, clouded in secrecy, and reasons need not be given for refusing a person naturalisation. An appeal is not possible and there is not any transparency. I am sure I echo the experiences of everybody in this House who has dealt with such cases. A cheap, fast, efficient and fair appeals procedure, such as that which the Ombudsman can offer, should be put in place in that area. Cases of aliens should be brought within the remit of the Ombudsman.
The Ombudsman's office is one of the success stories of the past ten or 12 years. It may not have progressed at the pace or to the extent Senator Roche would like, but it has progressed at a pace which could sustain the changes it was bringing about. I look forward to its further development in the years to come.
I welcome the Minister of State to the House and I thank her for her kind personal remarks. She referred to the extension of the remit of the Ombudsman's office and the remarks of Senators Roche and Manning are worthy of support and future consideration.
I welcome the Ombudman's report. As Senator Manning said, criticisms were voiced when the Ombudsman, Mr. Kevin Murphy, was appointed to the post from within the public service. I was delighted to hear Senator Manning and I agree with him. I also questioned his appointment, but he has proved us wrong and I am delighted that point has been proved.
I am glad that for the second year in succession the Ombudsman's report is on the worldwide web and, therefore, easily accessible. I spoke about this matter the other day in regard to another item when we discussed the possibility of the wider use of the worldwide web in the Department of Transport, Energy and Communications.
This report is only the tip of the iceberg. Only a very small number of complaints, approximately one in ten, are reported which means that another nine go unreported. We must do more to settle individual cases and we must go two further miles in that regard, a task that we must undertake now that the Ombudsman has drawn our attention to it. Whenever its attention is drawn to a complaint, the public service should identify as a matter of routine other similar complaints — that is the first mile. The second is that we should put in place measures to ensure that similar cases will not recur. Those steps must be taken if we wish to achieve our objective in this area.
Another measure we should put in place would take the preventative approach one step further. It is clear from the recent report and during the 11 years since the office was set up that the underlying culture in the public service is somewhat hostile to the people it serves. The Ombudsman is always riding against the tide, but if we are to achieve our objective, one of the best ways we can support his work is to realise that the tide must be turned. In the previous report on which the Ombudsman built in the recent report, he set out a series of principles of good administration which are simple and clear and I imagine acceptable to all concerned. I suggest those principles of good administration should become the agenda for a campaign of positive action within the public service, including the Civil Service. Those in charge of Government Departments and agencies should put in place training programmes based on those principles with the object of ensuring that everybody working in the public service knows what they are, what they imply and how to apply them, particularly in their work. They should also know that those are the principles by which their performance will be judged.
Regarding customer service, the Ombudsman's remit and work goes far beyond the complaints with which he deals to include dealing with complaints and work that must be done in the area of customer service in the public service. The Ombudsman is of necessity a court of last resort. Only the serious complaints are reported to him. There is an attitude to time in the public service. Time can be a powerful weapon in the hands of bureaucrats. An example of that attitude was expressed by a European bureaucrat whom I met some years ago. He told me that he put papers related to a problem in a pigeon hole and when he checked it some months later the problem did not seem to be so important.
We have an excellent Ombudsman, Ombudsman's office and staff, but we cannot abdicate to the Ombudsman and his staff the task of improving the public service. That is why I welcome the Minister's words, but I welcome the Strategic Management Initiative even more. It is a step in the right direction. It was prompted by the work of the Ombudsman's office in the past 11 years and I congratulate the Government for responding to the Ombudsman's initiatives in such a positive way.
I wish to share my time with Senator Sherlock.
I welcome the Minister of State and the Ombudsman to hear our comments about him and his report.
This is the first time a report of this nature has been produced bilingually and I thank the Ombudsman for doing that. Even though the number of people who speak Irish as their main language is small, nevertheless it is a sizeable minority and I thank the Ombudsman for recognising it.
I also welcome the announcement in the report of the establishment of the office of the European Ombudsman under the Treaty of the European Union in Maastricht. The office holder is Mr. Jacob Soderman with whom our Ombudsman, Mr. Murphy, is in close contact. That is important as increasingly more of our legislation, rules and regulations are governed by rules and regulations that originate in the EU and, therefore, it is important that there is close liaison between the two offices.
On a personal basis I have always found the Ombudsman's office of extreme importance and value. In many ways it is a last resort for Members. Many of us receive complaints at county council level or complaints about the public service at Seanad level and where we fail often the Ombudsman succeeds. That is important. I agree with Senator Roche that in many ways a good deal of the work we do could be handled by an expanded and better equipped and resourced Ombudsman's office. Some of the work we do is perhaps irrelevant to our main work as legislators. Complaints from the public allow us to ascertain how legislation is working, how it is impacting on the people we serve and forces us to call for a review of legislation. In that respect I welcome Senator Roche's call for that legislation to provide for the extension of the role of the Ombudsman.
If the Ombudsman has sufficient resources available I suggest he initiates a continuous information campaign so that all citizens are fully aware of his office and can avail of its services because the 3,000 people who resorted to him last year must represent a mere drop in the ocean. The Ombudsman has our support in his continuing good work.
Ba mhaith liom fáilte a chur roimh an Tuarascáil Bhliantiúil don Ombudsman. Over the past few years in particular the mere mention of the Ombudsman to those who feel aggrieved at decisions taken by local bodies very often means they become aware that their grievances can be addressed by his office without going any further. His is a vital office for all citizens. I noted that within Cork County Council there were no fewer than 52 cases on hand in the office of the Ombudsman in 1995, of which 39 were dealt with, which surprises me.
Decisions of the Ombudsman are important because they can often be interpreted as precedents by local authorities when citizens approach them with grievances. The role of the Ombudsman and the services provided by his office are undoubtedly recognised. Indeed, the recent restructuring of applications for social welfare allowances by the Department of Social Welfare should be of enormous help to citizens generally, as there was enormous need for such co-ordination.
We wish the Ombudsman and his staff well in their continuing task.
I am very disappointed that the Ombudsman felt it necessary to refer to the fact that many local authorities found it difficult to impart information, that attitude and practice are inappropriate. The message should go from here that Members condemn local authorities who fail to respond positively to inquiries from the Ombudsman. After all, the other arm of Government — local government — has a responsibility to be forthcoming and just as transparent as any other Government Department. Some local authorities abuse their powers, deliberately withholding information from the public and the Ombudsman. In recent years local authorities have shrouded themselves in secrecy, that is not helpful to our local government system or democracy, resulting from legislation which gave its members additional powers, to the detriment of local government overall.
Local authorities should co-operate with the Ombudsman. Some of the cases cited in his 1995 report, a mere sample, constitute an indictment of the manner in which local authorities dealt with members of the public within the past year.
While the Minister of State may not agree with my comments, from my discussions with people generally, my information is that local authorities have not been forthcoming but deliberately withhold information from the public and, to some extent, the Ombudsman.
I thank all Senators for their contributions to what has been a very worthwhile if not a very long debate.
I agree with Senator Finneran's last point and predict that local authorities will experience great difficulty in complying with the provisions of the freedom of information legislation, as they will be obliged to do. Generally, there is urgent need for a mind-set change in the manner in which local authorities are administered. While some are ahead of the possé, there is a general culture problem warranting attention.
Over recent weeks and months the strategic management initiative has been rolled out to local authorities by the Minister for the Environment, Deputy Howlin. I am not quite sure what emphasis has been placed on pursuing them on that matter because that is being undertaken by the Department of the Environment. Nonetheless, it is an issue on which I intend to keep an eye and, if necessary, prompt a push on what needs to be done there.
To revert to Senator Roche's excellent contribution in relation to this area — obviously he is in full command of his subject — I do not agree with all his assumptions because the statistics presented in this report in relation to the number of complaints received within the Ombudsman's remit had dropped year on year. If I understood Senator Roche correctly, he interpreted that as meaning there was not sufficient media hype about the Office of the Ombudsman or insufficient publicity, that, for whatever reason, the public was not resorting to his office to have their complaints addressed.
I strongly question Senator Roche's interpretation. If his was correct or if his interpretation was the only reason, why then would complaints in certain areas have increased and decreased in others? Is the Senator contending that selective groups of the public hear about the Office of the Ombudsman and others do not? When particular problems arise either because of European Union schemes, such as those in the agricultural sector or in relation to new policy direction by the Government, when difficulties of interpretation or implementation have arisen, certain sectors, if sufficiently annoyed, have made their way to the office of the Ombudsman to have their complaints resolved.
Undoubtedly, there have been greater problems in certain areas with corresponding or greater decreases in others, resulting in an overall reduction in the number of complaints. Therefore, for Senator Roche's theory to be correct, either there is very selective media propaganda in relation to who we tell about the Ombudsman or there are different factors at work in contributing to the decrease. I prefer to consider the latter the real reason.
The Leas-Chathaoirleach will not allow me to contribute at this stage but I disagree.
I also accept Senator Manning's thesis in relation to how politicians in multi-seat proportional representation constituencies generate an awful lot of the extra administration engaged in, particularly in ministerial offices, but in all our offices as legislators. The competitive element of our electoral system means we have created a clienteleism whereby complainants go from one party to another, from one TD to another TD, back to a Senator and perhaps even to a councillor on the way, at least to those councillors who hold clinics.
I agree with the Minister of State but, incidentally, the Taoiseach does not.
We are encouraging the public to generate paperwork. Our very electoral system generates this type of work; hence those who work in our offices respond to complaints received. If there was in place some cross-checking system, whereby the only response emanating from public administration was the first one received from the first public representative which was cross-referenced, this would reduce the volume enormously. In other words, if in response to every representation I made, I received a reply to the effect that that had already been dealt with by the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Forestry, the Minister for the Environment, Deputy Byrne or someone else, my interest in the case would rapidly wane, knowing that I was merely the third or fourth choice of a complainant to resolve his or her problem. There is a direct line in terms of the amount of effort one invests in resolving problems, depending on whether one is the first or fourth choice within one's constituency to resolve them. If there was even a way of letting us know where we came on the list of preferences, we would very quickly stop this crazy duplication at that level.
I am not saying I consider our availability in our constituencies is not a very attractive part of our political system which distinguishes us from other electoral systems in that, certainly in rural areas, our constituents know us by our first names and can gain access to us.
We are reviewing the Act which established the Office of the Ombudsman, to which several Senators referred. Replies have been received from Departments to the draft memorandum for Government and the heads of a Bill to extend the remit of the Ombudsman have been received. My Department is now analysing those responses and I hope to have a final memorandum for circulation to Departments before the end of July. Senator Manning's point is valid. The draft memorandum envisages extending the remit of the Ombudsman to cover the administrative aspects of the law relating to aliens or naturalisation generally.
I thank Senators for a very interesting debate and again thank the Ombudsman, Mr. Kevin Murphy, and his staff for the excellent service he provides to our customers and public service.
Question put and agreed to.