Ombudsman repeats call for extension to its remit to include prisons

21st July 2011

The Ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly, has repeated calls for an extension to the remit of her office to include prisons. As it stands there is no independent mechanism for complaints about prisons and Ireland is out of line with much of the rest of Europe where prisons are within the remit of the Ombudsman.

In February 2011, in a report entitled Developing and Optimising the role of the Ombudsman, the Office of the Ombudsman called for an extension of its remit to cover prisons, naturalisation and immigration. IPRT fully supports the extension of the remit of the Office of the Ombudsman in particular to include independent complaints about prisons; IPRT also supports calls of the Ombudsman for Children for the extension of her remit to include complaints from children held in St Patrick’s Institution.

Read more: 

• Irish Times “Ombudsman warns Government over applying whip”
• IPRT February 2011 “Ombudsman calls for extension of remit to include prisons”
• Office of the Ombudsman Report (3rd February 2011)