Ms Emily O'Reilly:

Being an ombudsman in the European context is more challenging than being one in the member state context. When I was the Irish Ombudsman I could rely on across-the-board parliamentary and Government support for what I did and there was a very high acceptance of my recommendations. It is a little more challenging at the European level because of different cultural views of issues around administration, data protection, freedom of information and so on. In addition, one important country does not have a national ombudsman, namely, Germany. It has a petitions committee but does not have an ombudsman so the Germans do not quite understand or get the role of the ombudsman. There have been issues, particularly in relation to the work I have done on transparency at European Council and EU ministerial level. There has been push back with some people saying that my office is going beyond its mandate and so on. When I hear that, it suggests to me that I am doing my job but people are not too thrilled about the fact that I am doing it.

Regarding the ECDC report, part of my rationale for doing that was to make my office as useful as possible during the pandemic. By highlighting the lack of health competence and the fact that it is member states who decide on their health policies and not the EU, we showed how that became a huge problem during the pandemic. Italy was in a terrible state at the beginning and there were moves by certain countries to protect their own equipment and supplies until the Commission basically got everyone to calm down and start sharing. It was, in a way, the EU confronting its own contradictions and the ongoing debate around a more united Europe versus a Europe in which member states have more control. The ECDC was created precisely to assist with what started to befall us last year but it did not and could not assist because the member states did not have to, and therefore did not, play ball. For example, in the years leading up to the pandemic the ECDC would have carried out surveys on Ireland's ICU capacity, the way Spain looks after elderly people in care, what levels of PPE the Netherlands has in stock and so forth. The responses the ECDC got were very piecemeal and the member states did not want them to be published. Even when member states gave information to the ECDC, they did not want that information published because they did not want to appear in a league table showing, for example, that Ireland is fantastic in relation to ICU capacity, Denmark is a disaster, Germany is in the middle and so on. Therefore, the capacity of the ECDC to war game, to ask what would happen if a pandemic were to happen, how prepared we are and who needs what was compromised. The ECDC could not war game and therefore, when the pandemic reached our shores, there was no plan. There was chaos. People have learned an awful lot over the last 12 months, obviously, but the only way chaos is going to be prevented in future is if member states decide that the EU should have a health competence and cede more of their control over public health.

That is a political issue. It is for the member states to decide among themselves but what my investigation did was point out what happens when one creates a body of the kind in question. It does not seem appropriate, perhaps, to call it a pretend agency but in a way it is. First one hears about the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and then about the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, ECDC. One believes the ECDC must have the same powers as its counterpart but it does not. The point of my investigation was to feed into the debate that has to take place. It has already started. Members will have heard the Commission talking about a health union and so on. It was to assist in that debate.