Date released: 21.10.2010
Following an investigation by the Ombudsman, Emily O'Reilly, into the Lost at Sea Scheme she recommended that financial compensation of €245,570 be paid by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to the Byrne family from Donegal. This recommendation was rejected by the Department. This led to the Ombudsman submitting a Special Report, running to one hundred and five pages, to the Houses of the Oireachtas in December 2009. The matter was, ultimately, taken up by the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Food for consideration. The Committee held a number of hearings into the matter. The Ombudsman gave evidence before the Committee on 21 April 2010.
On Wednesday 20 October 2010 the Committee met in private session to finalise its report on its deliberations. The Committee's report, which recommended rejection of the Ombudsman's Special Report, went to a vote with the 9 Government aligned members voting in favour of rejecting the Ombudsman's recommendation and the other 7 members attending voting against a rejection. The report was laid in the library of the Houses of the Oireachtas on 20 October 2010.
Commenting today on the outcome, the Ombudsman, Emily O'Reilly said:
"I am very disappointed for the Byrne family. I have exhausted all the avenues open to me in my efforts to get their complaint satisfactorily resolved. I remain convinced as to the merits of the case and that the family deserved to be compensated as a result of the adverse affect they suffered from actions which, in my view, amounted to maladministration. Ultimately, the Ombudsman model in Ireland allows the Houses of the Oireachtas to be the final arbiter where a public body rejects an Ombudsman recommendation."
The Ombudsman is of the view that the handling of this present case should prompt a wider public and political debate on the relationship between the Ombudsman and parliament. Our Ombudsman model is predicated on parliament acting both critically and supportively. Where parliament decides to reject an Ombudsman recommendation, and does so following a rational and objective engagement, an Ombudsman can have no cause for complaint. In a speech on 9 March 2010, at an Institute of Public Administration (IPA) conference on Good Governance, the Ombudsman spoke at length about how parliament and Ombudsman, ideally, should relate.
In its published decision on the Lost at Sea Special Report the Committee said it accepted that the way the Lost at Sea Scheme was advertised "...was not adequate, but not to the extent that it could be considered contrary to fair and sound administration...". The Committee went on to conclude that it "...is not persuaded by the Ombudsman's views in relation to the design of the scheme." In effect, the Committee has substituted its own judgement for the Ombudsman's; its report contains no further analysis or stated rationale for the foregoing conclusions. Indeed, its entire analysis runs to a single paragraph. It appears to the Ombudsman that the Committee has taken a view based, not on an objective and critical analysis of the report, but on the basis of the party whip system. This does not constitute a rational and objective engagement on the particular case. This points, yet again, to a fundamental weakness in the operation of parliament in Ireland where its role, in many instances, has been reduced to one of rubber-stamping decisions made elsewhere.
The application of the party whip within the Oireachtas Committee undermines what was intended to be one of the values of the committee system, that is, that partisan debate would be set aside in favour of a more open and objective approach to business. The implication of the Committee's decision is that the Government is allowed be the judge in its own case. Under the party whip system, the Government has effective control of the Dáil and Seanad; where it insists on using the whip in relation to an Ombudsman recommendation made, in part, against a former member of the Government, it is acting as the judge in its own case.
Commenting further on the outcome of this case the Ombudsman said:
"The chain of independence envisaged by the Oireachtas when it enacted the Ombudsman Act 1980 has been broken in this case and that can only be to the detriment of members of the public who have received unfair treatment at the hands of public bodies and who rely on the Office of the Ombudsman to provide a remedy for their complaints in a fair, effective and independent manner.
In its acknowledgements, the Committee appears to suggest that its report should, in some sense, be disregarded because of "its particular facts". That may be a reference to the fact that the actions of a former Government Minister were both scrutinised and criticised in the report, although I cannot be certain that this is the case.
The Committee goes on to compliment the work of my Office and adds that the "report casts no reflection on the integrity and effectiveness of the Office of the Ombudsman". However, I would hope that, in making this comment, the Committee did so in the full knowledge that any reflection cast on this Office is ultimately damage done to the very people represented by the Oireachtas; the citizens and residents of the country."
The Parliamentary and Committee Debates are available The Parliamentary and Committee debates available at www.oireachtas.ie
Further Information:
Tom Morgan at 01-6395600, Fax 01-6395674, e-mail: tom_morgan@ombudsman.gov.ie
For media inquiries contact:
Dave Glynn - Head of Communications Tel: 01 639 5714 / 087 236 1884
email: david_glynn@ombudsman.gov.ie