OPINION:New legislation will bring the first major expansion of the Ombudsman's remit, writes Emily O'Reilly
THE STATE of our courtrooms, delays in granting civil legal aid, disputes about driving tests, staff-student interactions in our universities, problems with the blood transfusion service and job-retraining programmes are just some of the many new areas that are due to come under the Ombudsman's scrutiny by virtue of a new piece of legislation published by the Government this week.
This is the first major expansion of my office's remit since its creation more than 24 years ago. For most of that time, its remit has covered the Civil Service, local authorities, the public health services (with the public voluntary hospitals being added in 2007) and An Post. The Ombudsman (Amendment) Bill 2008 will extend the remit to more than 100 additional State agencies including the Courts Service, Vocational Education Committees, third-level institutions of education, Fás, the Irish Blood Transfusion Service Board and many other agencies whose daily actions and decisions affect large numbers of people.
The Bill also provides for increased powers for the Ombudsman. For example, where the requirement on a public body to provide information to the Ombudsman about a complaint is not being met, the Ombudsman can institute legal proceedings.
The Bill has been a long time coming: the shape of the public service has changed dramatically since the establishment of my office in 1984. As I said in my annual report for 2006, over the years there has been a hiving off of functions which were within the remit of Ministers and their departments leading to the creation of single-purpose agencies such as Fás, the Road Safety Authority, the Courts Service and others. The practice of creating new agencies has accelerated in recent times and there are now over 450 in existence. Only a handful of these agencies come within my remit as Ombudsman even though, paradoxically, many come within the scope of freedom of information legislation.
The agencies are subject to little or no parliamentary oversight and there has been a diminution in ministerial responsibility for, and control over, functions which were formerly part of the relevant Government department.
After many years of futile calls by me and my predecessor Kevin Murphy it was with no small degree of exasperation that I called last year for legislation to correct this accountability deficit. And so, while the Amendment Bill may be overdue, it is certainly to be welcomed and I do hope the Oireachtas ensures that all those agencies which have significant interactions with the public are covered by the Bill.
Publication of the Bill is timely for other reasons. The recent OECD report Ireland: Towards an Integrated Public Service notes that the way in which agencies have been set up has decreased the overall accountability of the public service while increasing fragmentation and complexity. While the report throws down some challenging policy decisions for the Government in relation to the State agency sector, I welcome the opportunity envisaged for my office to give a greater say to the public to question how these agencies deliver their services.
This brings me to a wider question: is our public service getting any better and has my office made any difference? Let me give a very brief assessment. The Irish public service is operating today in a radically changed environment to what it was when my office was established. Irish society is now more secular, pluralistic and affluent. The public service has responded well to these changes and its role in facilitating the Celtic Tiger years is widely acknowledged. It has become more business-like in its approach to service delivery although much work remains to be done.
Quite reasonably, there is emphasis on efficiency, value for money and so on. The vocabulary of public service reform is taken from the world of business. But it sometimes concerns me that, in the midst of this change, we may lose sight of some of the fundamental values which have informed our public service. These are values which, in many respects, are at odds with the values of business. They have to do with fairness, equality, integrity, and a recognition of the common good. Efficiency and cost-effectiveness are, of course, key elements which the public service must pursue, but it must never be forgotten that, unlike his or her counterpart in the private sector, the user of public services seldom has a choice of an alternative supplier.
Fair treatment is vital and must not be lost sight of when efficiency measures are being introduced. I detect that the values of fairness and upholding the common good to some extent are under threat. It is not that public servants set out to be deliberately unfair or discriminatory; I acknowledge that the vast majority of transactions between public bodies and their clients are carried out in a proper, fair and impartial manner. But particularly in straitened times - which are now upon us again - public servants can struggle to meet reduced budgets while, at the same time, attempting to meet rising demands for services. Inevitably, it is the budgetary constraints that win out.
My office has seen instances where public bodies have introduced upper age limits to ration grants though they had no legal authority to do so. We have seen homeless single people refused consideration for housing on the grounds of limited housing stock and the more pressing needs of homeless family units.
It may seem reasonable to create such priorities but not when the governing legislation does not in fact authorise a public servant to ration resources in this way.
We have seen nursing home subventions refused to elderly people on grounds of excessive means only to discover on further probing of the complainants' circumstances by my office that the means ought not to have been taken into account in the first place.
It is very difficult for any person who has been refused benefits or services to mount a successful appeal. A decision to refuse can look convincing, particularly when it begins with the words "it is not the policy of the to pay a grant/benefit to someone in your circumstances".
Many people will not think it worthwhile referring the matter to my office because of a belief that they have no entitlement to the grant/benefit in question. But those that do come to my office have at their disposal the experience of my staff and their expert knowledge of all relevant programmes.
Another area of concern arises from privatisation of public services and its effect on core public service values. I have already witnessed these effects in the local authority service where privatisation of waste collection has made it increasingly difficult to administer waste-charge waivers to low-income households. While many local authorities are very conscious of their social obligations in this regard, a small number seem to be moving towards the rules of the market place, stating they are in competition with private operators and for that reason are unwilling or unable to introduce a waiver scheme for clients of private operators.
The OECD report describes the public service's core values as "its greatest resource". There is an obligation on all of us to ensure that this remains the case.
Emily O'Reilly has been the Ombudsman since June 2003