Seán Kyne (Galway West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Ombudsman. I agree with her on the importance of transparency as it produces more informed debate and better agreement. She spoke about allowing access to certain documents while needing to keep others confidential. Who decides and how do they decide which documents can be shown and which are kept confidential?

The United States, as the other stakeholder, has its positioning papers. What access is there to these documents? Is there a breakdown of the interested sectors such as the environment, agriculture, transport, etc? I understand that, for example, the head of the agriculture sector would have to give agreement, as would the European Council. Will the Ombudsman tell us exactly what information can be provided? The United States has a much larger lobbying industry. Do we have any access to the meetings that have been held on the TTIP negotiations?

Do cases cross the Ombudsman's desk of citizens impacted on by European law which has not yet been transposed into national law by national parliaments? I understand there was a case in Italy in the 1990s when there were delays in transposing EU law into national law and a citizen felt it should not impact on them until such time as it had been transposed.