Councillor Constance Hanniffy:

There is a deficit of knowledge about EU policy and funding follows the policy which Europe is engaging with at a particular time. People need to be brought up to speed on the policy issues that are there, and the funding of projects that can be derived from them and which can be of benefit to a particular region or county.

I thank the Chairman for his commitment to the three points which we have prioritised here today. We look forward to seeing the document the committee will produce in the coming weeks. We look forward to engaging with the committee in future updates. It is very welcome that the committee has given a commitment towards better engagement with us in respect of the NRP and so on. That is to be very welcome and it is something we have been looking for and something we have spoken about for quite some time. If the committee takes on board the forum for structured dialogue, we will have gone down quite a lot of the road today.

Deputy Dara Murphy spoke about the relationship with MEPs. As Councillor O'Loughlin said, there is no structured dialogue, but in fairness, there should be a structured dialogue in place back home in Ireland for all people who represent the Irish interests on the various committees. We also have the economic and social committee, which involves the partnership people, the trade unions, business people and so on. There is also the Council of Europe. I feel there should be better engagement, if only once or twice a year, and perhaps this committee could consider facilitating that. The role of our engagement with the regional authorities and regional assemblies can sometimes be very strong. Coming from the BMW region, I certainly have very good, structured engagement with the regional assembly in relation to EU issues and the EU operational programmes. I chair the monitoring committee of the EU operational programmes in that assembly region. That engagement is there and the interaction and development of our contacts in setting and facilitating cross-border programmes is part and parcel of the work which we do through the assembly. I am sure it happens in the southern and eastern assembly as well.

I was asked if there is a shift in the COR towards a political process. I must be honest and say that there is. If a politician is not engaged in his or her political grouping in the COR, he or she will not bring much influence to bear on anything. It is fair to say that. We in Ireland, particularly Councillor Hurley, Councillor Sheahan and myself, are possibly in a more disadvantaged position than some of the others because we belong to large political groupings who have a great number of members with huge political clout across Europe. We must throw our weight in with them and compete with them. We have learned how to do that and we have positioned ourselves as vice chairs and vice presidents on committees, with the result that three of us are now co-ordinators on various commissions. For two years, I was the chairperson of the last COR grouping of the high-powered Commission for Economic and Social Policy, or ECOS. I got that through my engagement and work within the political process.

Are we competing among ourselves, coming from regions with different pressures? We all know our own issues and I think we try to bring them together as a package and try to deal with like-minded members in other delegations. These members would come from similar regions to ourselves and might have similar problems to us. In other words, it is about networking.