Ms Emily O'Reilly:

I thank the Senator for his warm comments. They are very much appreciated. In general, my recommendations are well accepted by the institutions. The only place I get pushback tends to be in respect of transparency or freedom of information. In Ireland, which has an Information Commissioner, there is an Ombudsman to make binding decisions. In Europe, we make recommendations so the institutions still control the tap. Sometimes it takes a while for recommendations to be accepted; we are trying to influence a cultural change or shift so that something that might have been recommended a couple of years ago might only come to fruition a few years afterwards.

We have done much work on the transparency of the European Council, the ministers from member states who make law with their co-legislators in the European Parliament. I have been trying to show the real-life impact of this. There is the example of two current pieces of advice. One relates to bees, pesticides and advice from the European Food Safety Authority. Advice was given to member states in 2013 but it has been stuck, with no decision made as to whether it would be implemented by member states. The problem is that we cannot know which member states are holding up matters. We do not know if it is the Irish, the French, the Germans or whomever who might be under pressure from constituencies at home and who do not want to go along with the advice as a result. As citizens do not know that, they cannot therefore influence their own member state. If we knew Ireland was blocking a particular regulation that some constituents may favour, the only way the Senator could influence this is if he knew in the first instance who is blocking the process or how it is being blocked.

This goes back to what happens in the Oireachtas and the extent to which it holds the Government accountable. I remember that people from a parliamentary committee in the UK came over before Brexit and the chairperson complained that ministers went to Brussels but people did not know what they were doing or agreeing. I asked the chairperson to ask the ministers because the accountability lies not with Brussels but with the relevant national parliament, which, in the case of Ireland, would be the Oireachtas. That is very important.

In general, my recommendations are accepted but I have also learned to play the long game, knowing that sometimes baby steps are required. Sometimes a recommendation is made and we can go off to do our shopping for a long time before it might be agreed. Since I took office, we know that relatively few citizens, going on the basis of the number of complaints we get, need the European Ombudsman because their daily needs are taken care of by people like the members at this meeting, the relevant ombudsman and all of that. At a European level, there is a different type of issue. Whether it is a big investigation into the ECDC, the transparency of trade deals or similar big matters, I seek to do work that if done and accepted will have a trickle-down effect on many citizens, even if they have never heard of the European Ombudsman.