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Annual Report of the Ombudsman 2006

CHAPTER 1: Foreword and Introduction

Foreword

I hereby submit my fourth Annual Report to the D‡il and Seanad pursuant to the provisions of Section 6(7) of the Ombudsman Act, 1980. This is the 23rd Annual Report submitted in relation to the work of the Office of the Ombudsman since it was established in 1984.

Ombudsman

Emily O’ Reilly

June 2007

INTRODUCTION

Last year my Office dealt with 2,187 complaints, 41% of which were either fully or partially resolved or provided some degree of assistance to the complainant. To put it another way, 897 complainants were better off as a result of having contacted my Office.

While my main function is to carry out independent and impartial examinations of complaints, I am always anxious to ensure that public bodies use the lessons learned from my findings so that, as far as possible, other clients will not have similar cause for complaint. In this way, even though individual complaints can be upsetting for those who feel they have not been properly treated, they can also have positive side effects in that they can help to bring about better quality public administration. In a sense, an Ombudsman’s workload, over time, should become increasingly more complex, because, on the one hand, public bodies have taken on board the ombudsman’s findings in previous cases and, on the other, public bodies strive to meet the ever increasing demands of the public for more efficient and higher quality public services. In other words, the quality of our public services is a living thing; standards which were accepted or tolerated five or ten years ago are not good enough anymore.

The cases which I have selected for this Annual Report are a rich vein of material illustrating what can happen to people from a wide cross-section of Irish society when things go wrong. Within these cases I found that a high proportion of them could be grouped around a single issue, viz., the failure of public bodies to act correctly in accordance with the law and any other rules and regulations. The fact that such cases have arisen after more than 23 years of scrutiny by my Office, perhaps runs counter to my earlier remarks and underlines the need for constant vigilance and, indeed, constant training of new entrants to the public service, to ensure that they are conscious of the importance of applying the law correctly. It is for this reason that I have made this issue the theme of this Report by devoting Chapter 2 to it under the title “Getting it Right”.

Of course, those complainants who were affected by the incorrect application of the law at least had the good fortune to have an avenue of appeal open to them. However, this is not the case for many members of the public. I mentioned earlier that the demand for better quality public services is constantly changing, but so too, is the actual size and composition of the public service. Over the years there has been a hiving off of functions which were traditionally within the remit of Ministers and their Departments and the creation of new single-purpose agencies, for example, FÁS, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Health and Safety Authority. The practice of creating new agencies has accelerated in more recent times.

There are now over 450 such bodies in existence, only a handful of which come within my remit as Ombudsman even though, paradoxically, many do come within the scope of freedom of information legislation. Other accountability mechanisms are also lacking in that they are subject to little or no parliamentary oversight and there has been a diminution in Ministerial responsibility and control over functions which formerly were part of the relevant department. The need for legislation to correct this accountability deficit and to allow users of the services of these public bodies to complain to the Ombudsman is long overdue.

Still on the subject of gaps in my remit I have pointed out many times that the Ombudsman Act prevents my Office from investigating actions taken in the “...administration of the law relating to aliens or naturalisation...”. I am one of the few Ombudsmen in Europe whose jurisdiction is restricted in this way. I believe the restriction is unwarranted and that the full range of administrative actions in the immigration and residence area should be subject to investigation by my Office. My Office receives a small but growing number of complaints in this area which I deal with on an informal basis. Typical complaints relate to failure to give reasons for refusal of a visa application, or being given only partial reasons. Complainants rightly point out that this seriously hampers their capacity to mount an effective appeal against the decision. I have also received complaints involving claims of discrimination on race or age grounds. Other decisions are simply arbitrary. Best international practice demands the full legal scrutiny of an independent Ombudsman in this area.

Finally, I want to thank all my staff for their continued dedication and support throughout the year. In particular, I would like to thank my Director General, Pat Whelan, Tom Morgan, Senior Investigator and John Doyle from our IT Unit for their excellent work in the production of this Annual Report.

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