Focus is on issues affecting vulnerable

Issues affecting vulnerable and marginalised groups have been highlighted in the annual report for 2003 of the Ombudsman, published…

Issues affecting vulnerable and marginalised groups have been highlighted in the annual report for 2003 of the Ombudsman, published yesterday.

In her first report since taking over the role last June, Ms Emily O'Reilly has also highlighted a number of cases in which her office had made a "very real and positive impact in assisting people who are socially, economically or physically marginalised as a result of poverty, lack of education and ill- health".

Ms O'Reilly told journalists yesterday she had decided to focus on marginalised groups following the "great deal of public debate" which has been generated in the last 12 months on rights for disabled and other groups.

Arising out of one case, she has also asked the Oireachtas to consider introducing legislation to give greater financial assistance to grandparents who have taken over the care of their grandchildren.

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In all, the Ombudsman received 2,213 valid complaints last year, compared to 2,526 in 2002. Staff at the Ombudsman's office dealt with 9,496 enquiries from the general public.

The office concluded a total of 2,359 complaints last year. Some 18 per cent were resolved or partially resolved, while assistance was provided in a further 23 per cent of cases.

Civil service departments continued to account for the majority of complaints (46 per cent), with the Department of Social and Family Affairs, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Education accounting for most of those complaints. Local authorities accounted for one-third of complaints, with over a quarter of these relating to planning matters. Just over 16 per cent of complaints related to health boards, with An Post accounting for the remaining 4 per cent.

The Ombudsman said that, in the context of the ongoing debate on the rights for the disabled, she decided to look at a number of specific cases in her annual report, "not just in relation to disabilities but in other areas where people are vulnerable to see how an alternative ... resolution mechanism could resolve matters".

In one case, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council refused to pay a disabled person's grant to a terminally ill man for alterations to his home because his builder did not have a tax clearance certificate. Although the man died before the case was settled, the Ombudsman's office succeeded in getting the Department of the Environment to use its discretion to approve the grant.

In another case, Tipperary Town Council refused to pay a disabled persons' grant to a woman suffering pulmonary fibrosis because it only paid grants to people who were completely immobilised. The Ombudsman believed the conditions of the council's scheme were too restrictive and, following her intervention, the grant was paid.

The report also highlighted a case where a grandmother had taken the children of her drug-addict daughter into her care. Because the children were not officially in care, she was entitled to allowances of just one-third of what they would be if they were the subject of an official care order and placed in her foster care.