Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 30 March 2021
Committee on Public Petitions
Work of the European Ombudsman during Covid-19: Discussion
Cormac Devlin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source
I welcome Ms O'Reilly back and thank her for her opening remarks. Many questions on the EMA have already been asked so I will not refer to it. On Ms O'Reilly's inquiry into the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, I was taken with her reference to the gathering and assessing of data linked to the pandemic. She stated issues arose over the changing advice on face coverings. We saw this here at home when we changed tack on that front, arguably ahead of many of our European colleagues. Ms O'Reilly mentioned there was a survey of the capacity of a number of member states to deal with the Covid-19 crisis. Having regard to that and the face coverings issue, she might elaborate a little more on the inquiry. Has it concluded completely? Are there still elements being dealt with? I am not prying but just wondering whether Ms O'Reilly could elaborate a little more.
I have a question that is similar to those of Deputy Buckley on Ms O'Reilly's office's engagement with us. How many complaints or inquiries does she deal with annually? How many staff are in her office? If I could ask Ms O'Reilly those questions-----
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