mr president by its very nature this report contains a great deal of statistics
you can look at read and analyse those but obviously the work of the committee throughout the last twelve months is there on view
this committee that i sit on is a peculiar committee of parliament
it has very direct links with citizens and it deals with problems raised by individuals and groups
yes people come to this committee with problems that we very often cannot solve but at least they have a port to call on and where cases are inadmissible we try to redirect
we deal with many many problems from across member states but as the statistics show some countries use the services of the committee more widely than others perhaps because there are members of the committee who are from those countries and therefore they attract problems from their constituents
i am always fascinated by the reality particularly in an irish context that sometimes people complain that europe is too powerful and yet when they have a problem and turn to europe for help they sometimes complain that europe is not powerful enough
i think that is quite significant
the petitions committee works in my view on the basis of soft power and i think the work of the last twelve months has been about trying to influence member states who are not implementing legislation in the manner that they should to change their ways
but we can only work by virtue of the people who come to us with problems and address them and their particular needs
i want to talk about some of the issues we dealt with not in detail but just to give a flavour
obviously the environment is the major area where complaints come to us from citizens of the european union
some of the major ones relate to water quality
the baltic sea issue was a very contentious one dealt with by the committee in harmony with other committees of the parliament
property rights are a very major concern for citizens and one that i fear will become increasingly so if i judge by the complaints coming into my own constituency office from citizens who have purchased properties across member states of the european union
our powers in this regard are limited but this does not mean that we cannot speak on these matters and try and make improvements
in relation to business directories where companies individuals schools have been trapped into paying money to companies that publish names and then require payment where people initially did not believe payment was necessary or indeed required or worse still where people did not want the service at all we are still inundated by individuals who are trapped and feel powerless to resist the pressures of these unscrupulous business directory companies
we have called for the commission to take action in this regard
we also stress in this report that we are concerned about the lack of progress on equitable life on which the petitions committee did some work in two thousand and seven and on which i chaired the committee of inquiry
we would urge the uk authorities to take on board all of our recommendations apologise yes but also compensate those who were so severely affected
in my final few seconds let me talk about the committee itself and the procedures under which we work
we would rather only admissible petitions came our way and we need to work very hard with citizens so that they know what we can and cannot deal with
i want the timeframe in which complaints are dealt with to be improved as we go forward
as one who has served on this committee in this parliamentary term i believe that because it deals directly with citizens it has a great role to play in reducing what i discussed in a school in ireland yesterday the so-called democratic deficit
at least people come here to the parliament and they are heard and listened to
i think that is extremely important
as we move to another year let me thank the secretariat of the committee the group staff and my own staff for their assistance in this report
