Dominic Hannigan (Meath East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ombudsman. As she said, TTIP is of great concern to the committee. Commissioner Cecilia Malmström was before the committee just last week and we had a good and robust debate. We had previously published a political contribution which we sent to the European Commission last June, which is nine months ago. We received a response last week. In our contribution we outlined some of the concerns Members across the Houses have in relation to issues such as the need for it to be a mixed agreement. Many of us are concerned about the potential impact on agriculture, in particular the beef industry. However, we note that some other parts of the agriculture sector, including the dairy industry, stand to gain. With the removal of the milk quota this week, there is potential for our dairy farmers to gain greatly from TTIP.

Of great concern for many of us in the Houses is the investor dispute settlement mechanism and how we deal with it. I am interested to know whether the Ombudsman considers that there has been sufficient discussion about that in the public sphere. We have noticed the improvement in transparency around the negotiations and that is thanks not just to parliaments like ours publishing political contributions but also organisations and institutions like the Ombudsman's. She is right that there will be a difficulty for the Commission in getting people to buy into TTIP unless there is greater transparency, so we all welcome that.

In terms of lobbying, I thank the Ombudsman for her comments on how this Parliament is leading in relation to our lobbying work. It is legislation my party thought it was essential to introduce. It is one of the things we set out to achieve at the beginning of our term of office and I am glad to see it is concluded.