The Ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly, has launched a scathing attack on the government’s refusal to fully debate her report on the Lost at Sea Scheme.

Ms O’Reilly told a conference on corporate governance on Tuesday: “Parliament in Ireland has been side-lined and is no longer in a position to hold the executive to account.”

She added: “Unfortunately, the model of government set out in the Irish Constitution has become more of a fiction than a reality. In practice the Dáil, and to a slightly lesser extent the Seanad, is controlled very firmly by the Government parties through the operation of the whip system.”

The Ombudsman’s report recommended payment of 250,000 euro to a Bruckless family who she said were wrongly excluded from the Lost at Sea Scheme. Skipper Francis Byrne and his 16-year-old son James died, along with three others, when their boat the Skifjord sank off Burtonport on October 31, 1981. The family applied to the Scheme, but the deadline had passed and their application was rejected as ineligible. The Ombudsman’s investigation found that the scheme should have been more widely advertised. She said that, although the Scheme itself had not paid out compensation as such, the family should receive a payment of 250,000 euro as redress for having been wrongly excluded.

On December 14 last, after her recommendations were rejected by the Minister for State at the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Ms O’Reilly sent her report to the Dáil and Seanad for consideration, asking them to “take whatever action they deemed appropriate”.

The issue was discussed in the Dáil on February 2 and in the Seanad on February 14. However, Ms O’Reilly says that on both occasions the discussions consisted of “a series of statements rather than any detailed engagement with the substance of the investigation” and no further action was recommended.

On March 2 and 3, members of the opposition tried to have the report referred to Oireachtas committees, but this was again rejected. On all occasions, members voted along party lines.

Profound change needed

Ms O’Reilly said using the party whip to prevent discussion of her recommendations is a symptom of the “poor governance in a number of our key private and public institutions [that] lies at the heart of the downturn”.

The Lost at Sea case, she argued tracks “a line that runs from maladministration in a Government Department right through to poor Governance at the very highest level of this State.

“The economic and political crises that face this country will never be dealt with unless the culture and values of the political and administrative classes undergo profound change.