Speeches

Speech - Monday | 05 June 2023

Good morning everyone, welcome. I thank you for taking the time to join us today to discuss the creation of a stronger EU integrity framework and I thank our speakers for accepting the invitation to engage in public debate. Today’s event is taking place six months after Qatargate prompted a laser sharp focus on how the EU safeguards its integrity – and by extension its credibility and its legitima...

Speech - Monday | 22 May 2023

Good morning and let me begin by thanking the European Parliament and the European Disability Forum for organising this what is now the fifth time that this event has been held. It puts the issues around disability at the physical centre of EU decision-making in the people’s parliament here in Brussels. As European Ombudsman, my role is to help people facing problems with the EU administration and...

Speech - Tuesday | 02 May 2023

Good afternoon and thank you to the Minister and the Department of Foreign Affairs for inviting me to speak to you here today as part of the celebration of, and reflection on, Ireland’s 50 years of membership of what is now the European Union. There is no doubt that our membership of the Union has been the most radically transformative part of Ireland’s modern history as both the Taoiseach and the...

Speech - Wednesday | 26 April 2023

Honourable EESC President, It is a great honour to be invited to speak at your inauguration and to be in the company of so many EU public servants who care deeply about the EESC’s mission to bring civil society closer to the heart of EU decision-making. The EESC is such a cornerstone of the EU edifice that it is easy to forget the bold vision that underpinned its foundation in 1957 - a process of ...

Speech - Monday | 13 March 2023

Good evening. Let me begin by thanking Rapporteur Pelletier, the shadow rapporteurs and the Petitions Committee for their strong endorsement of our work in 2021. The COVID crisis continued to dominate much of our lives that year but since then the multiple crises provoked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have done so. The loss of life has been immense as has the devastation of Ukrainian families fo...

Speech - Thursday | 26 January 2023

Financial Times journalist Martin Wolf had an arresting title for an essay he wrote in that newspaper last weekend. He called it “In defence of democratic capitalism”. No less arresting, but infinitely more poignant, was his opening paragraph. Wolf wrote: “In May 1940, as the Nazis invaded the Netherlands, my mother, then 21 years old, escaped from the country in a trawler hijacked by her father, ...

Speech - Thursday | 17 November 2022

Thank you and good morning everybody. This conference has been a long time in the planning, a testament to the importance that my colleagues and I place upon it and to our wish to come away from these two days re-inspired and re-invigorated when it comes to planning for the future of the European Ombudsman. Your work as academics is critical to that work by feeding into the intellectual underpinni...

Speech - Tuesday | 27 September 2022

Good afternoon everyone, Thank you very much for the invitation to speak to you. The last time I was in Washington was in December 2018 and I’m using these few days - as I did then - to meet largely with people and organisations whose work focuses on the protection and maintenance of high ethical standards in your public institutions. A lot has happened in the four years since 2018 including the a...

Speech - Thursday | 08 September 2022

Ambassador Conmy, honoured guests, members of the Association de Femmes d’Europe. I’d like to begin by thanking the Ambassador for the invitation to speak with you this evening and to congratulate the Association on the quiet, understated, but vital work it continues to do around the world. I will shortly speak about the situation of women more generally in the EU, but I want first to remark upon ...