Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The European Ombudsman, Emily O'Reilly, has established two separate investigations into the European Council and the Commission on the lack of transparency around negotiations. In her report she calls for public access to consolidated negotiations texts, greater proactive disclosure of TTIP documents and increased transparency as regards meetings that Commission officials hold on TTIP with other businesses, organisations, lobby groups and NGOs. This is a big sphere of leverage that is being put onto this particular negotiation. She has also called for the Commission to establish a comprehensive list of public and non-public TTIP documents and for greater proactivity concerning the publication of documents, including agendas and minutes of meetings with lobbyists. Emily O'Reilly has called for the Commission to extend the transparency obligations as a result of meetings with stakeholders to ensure EU officials involved in the TTIP negotiations only meet with interested representatives who are registered with the transparency register. At this stage the US is making some of these documents available through its embassies throughout Europe. Commissioner Malmström has stated it is up to particular governments, that is, the Minister, to ensure access by elected representatives, such as me, have access to these documents. Will the Minister give us access to these documents? Will he give us a reading room?

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