FINE GAEL MEP Jim Higgins says he believes the Government is determined to undermine the office of the Ombudsman over the Lost at Sea controversy.
Mr Higgins was commenting on a letter written last week by Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly to the Oireachtas Committee for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in which she disputes the veracity of statements made by former minister for the marine Frank Fahey to the committee earlier this month.
The committee is considering the Ombudsman’s special report and recommendation that a Donegal family excluded from the scheme should be compensated.
Mr Fahey initiated the scheme when he was minister in 2001 to provide replacement fishing vessel tonnage for families that lost boats at sea between 1980 and 1990. It attracted controversy when it emerged two of Mr Fahey’s constituents were beneficiaries.
In a letter to committee chairman Johnny Brady dated May 11th, Ms O’Reilly took issue with Mr Fahey’s contention at a committee hearing on May 6th last that the Byrne family did not qualify as it “was not involved in fishing for a long number of years before the Lost at Sea scheme was introduced”. Ms O’Reilly said she was “seriously concerned” about the “accuracy” of this, given the terms of the scheme and how they were applied by the Department of the Marine.
The scheme did not include any such condition, and the application forms did not request any such information, she said. Ms O’Reilly also said the Ombudsman’s office was aware of a successful application where tonnage was granted to a widow who lost her husband when his boat sank in 1986. She had no family member involved in fishing at the time.
Ms O’Reilly acknowledges that it “rests entirely” with the Oireachtas committee to “form its own views” on arguments in the case to which she attaches “huge importance”. Mr Higgins said he believed the letter showed the seriousness with which the Ombudsman is taking the issue.
“The Government appears to be trying to make the Ombudsman’s office irrelevant, and this would have very serious consequences for the rights and protection of citizens to whose defence the Ombudsman comes,” Mr Higgins said.
Speaking for the family that took the complaint, Danny Byrne said he “supports the Ombudsman in her concern about the quality of evidence” given by Mr Fahey.