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

The Minister mentioned that representatives in the European Parliament are getting privileged information. It is a privilege to be a public representative. Access to information which affects the people one represents is not a privilege; it is a right for public representatives. We are always told that nobody takes an interest in the European Union. Now people are taking an interest in particular negotiations and what is happening? There is a battening down of the hatches to try to stop the dispersal of information. This is a massive ceding of sovereignty. This is one of the biggest economic agreements to which the State will ever be party and yet the information we are getting is second-hand and the majority of elected representatives in this particular seomra have no iota of what is happening with TTIP.

What I am asking the Minister is very clear. We have been told by Commissioner Malmström that a reading room where we could gain access to all the documents that are already accessed by MEPs could be made available in this Oireachtas. Will the Government make such a reading room available? Emily O'Reilly has asked what MEPs do with the information once they get to see it in the reading rooms. At present they are prohibited from communicating that information any further than those reading rooms. That issue needs to be addressed. Will the Minister make a reading room available and, if so, will he allow elected representatives use that information in the best interests of citizens?

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