 We're really delighted to be joined today by the European Ombudsman, Ms Emily O'Reilly. Ms O'Reilly has been serving as European Ombudsman since July 2013. Prior to this she was Ireland's first female Ombudsman and Information Commissioner. She's also a decorated journalist, author and political editor. It's a real pleasure for you to be with us today. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you for the invitation. I might just start with a very basic question. What is the role of the European Ombudsman? Okay, good question. Well, the European Ombudsman is the Ombudsman who takes complaints against the European Administration. So that could be any of the institution's bodies or agencies. So it could be against the Commission, it could be against the European Central Bank, it could be against the European Medicines Agency, any of those bodies. So if you have to have, the complaint has to be directed against an institution. So if you want to complain about the Health Service in Ireland, you go to the Irish Ombudsman and you don't go to the European Ombudsman. So most people's complaints are dealt with at national level. Most people's complaints in their daily lives are about health, social protection, education, housing, all of that. They're dealt with at number-state level. So at the European level the issues can be a little bit different. So we get a lot of freedom of information requests, access to documents would be a big piece. Lots of people are in receipt of European money, contracts, grants, all of that. Sometimes there might be a problem. They come to us to deal with that. We also deal with allegations that there has been a breach of human rights, allegations that there's been a breach of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. So for example you might have an NGO working in Greece who thinks that some European agency hasn't done its work properly or there's a problem there, they come to us. Also we have young people who are looking for jobs in Europe and they apply through EPSA, the European Personnel Selection Office. Sometimes if they're not successful they feel that there might have been something wrong with the process. They come to us. It's a vast range of issues. Like the Irish Office, which I was to say a few years ago, I make recommendations. They're not binding decisions that a court would make, but the vast majority of them are thankfully accepted by the institutions. Anna, within this broad spectrum of issues that you've mentioned, what and will your objectives be over the next five years? You've recently been re-elected for your second full term. What are you going to be focusing on? Well I've been looking very carefully at what the Commission is planning. It's programme, it's strategy for the next few years. Obviously also the Parliament and the number of issues that stand out. Obviously climate change is one, migration continues to be an issue obviously. Defence is becoming a bigger issue within the EU. So wherever I can usefully deal with administrative issues, problems that arise in relation to those areas that we do that. I mean for example in climate change we might be dealing with access to documents requests in relation to pesticides or the protection of bees or where money is going in relation to a particular project involving the environment. So where we can usefully involve ourselves we will. So I want to make the Office much more useful to citizens and help to I know it sounds pious but it is true to make that bridge between the European institutions that you can see in very far away and the citizens. And just on that theme, placing citizens at the centre of democracy figures very strongly in the Commission's work programme. How important do you think public trust is for the future of Europe? Well it's huge, sometimes when you can use words like trust or accountability or anything like that they seem abstract but they actually are very meaningful because the Union has to exist on trust. I mean they have to trust, it trusts the glue that keeps the Union together. I mean the people and the citizens have to believe that they are better off inside the Union than outside it. They also have to believe that the institutions are working not for themselves but for the people. And that's why obviously that the Commission President the Commission has come out with all of this and citizen focused and all of that and I would be holding them to account in relation to that and making sure that their words are matched by their deeds. And just on those themes of trust, accountability you've spoken about the need to hold national politicians to account for decisions they make at the EU level. Yes, yes this is the blame Brussels culture. I mean we saw that in full flower during the Brexit referendum when sort of a caricature of Brussels the faces of bureaucrats have been developed and there's a very negative and damaging stereotype and we saw the result of that. But in fact the people who make it almost are not the Commission the faces, so-called faces of bureaucrats the people who make the laws are the co-legislator which is the parliament elected by all of us in our member states and the council who are our ministers for agriculture, finance all of them all go over to Brussels several times a year to formulate laws which have an impact on us but most people don't see that because the work of the council which is all our ministers is quite opaque sort of hands across your homework sort of stuff and that's done for some genuine reasons because it's very hard to get 27 member states to agree on things but at the same time it would be impossible to believe that in Ireland we wouldn't know a position a government was taking on a particular issue so it should be exactly the same in Europe where people have a right to know what they have a right not because I say they have a right, they have a right under the treaties to engage in the democratic life of the Union and they can't do that unless they know what's going on and particularly oppositions that all member states are taking so that they can have a say in that and try and influence the play of the Tuesday and very finely the European Parliament elections saw a significant rise in voter turnout in many member states do you think this is evidence of a renewed appetite for citizen engagement with European projects? I do, I think there's certainly evidence of renewed interest because oddly enough even though Europe has been being set by crisis over the last while whether the immigration and the deaths of so many thousands of people on our shores whether it's the Greek, the financial crisis, Brexit all of that, it's also heightened people's interest in the EU, in Brussels and all of that people are able to, I think people are following it but more interest now, they can also recognise personalities outside of their own member state people and I think they certainly do want to get more involved they want to have a say in it particularly young people because of the young people who felt really disenfranchised in the UK following the result of the Brexit referendum and I think a lot of the marches and the demonstrations and the movements that were started a kick started in the wake of that were led by young people because they're the people you're the people who are going to be inherited the EU It's been a real pleasure, thank you so much Thank you