Councillor Neale Richmond:

We understand that perhaps a Minister will only come in once every quarter or once every year to do a post-summit briefing. While that might make things is little easier for everyone involved we believe it is not ideal from the scrutiny aspect.

Deputy Durkan raised the question of energy. I have no intention of entering the debate on nuclear power here but one thing we strongly welcome is the announcement that there will be a European Commission vice president with responsibility for energy union. While the individual Commissioner-designate has changed in the past week we believe the fact that the portfolio is being maintained and prioritised as one of the five key areas by President-designate, Mr. Junker, is to be welcomed and we hope to see some movement in that area.

I will conclude on a general comment on disconnection. This has been raised by all speakers. European Movement Ireland commissioned a poll produced by RED C. I realise everyone in this room knows RED C well and often they live by its monthly analysis in certain newspapers. We know the abilities of RED C on polling data. We presented the results before this committee during the middle of the EU Presidency. Some 86% of people are still in favour of Ireland's continuing membership of the European Union and 83% of people are positively disposed towards Ireland's continuing role within the European Union and Ireland's relationship with the EU. We are fortunate to be in that position. It is right that European Movement Ireland would champion this but that does not mean there cannot be a level of disconnect and rigorous scrutiny of the European Union in a positive manner.

I think we need to underline that everything we - and by we I mean the people, and not just my organisation - are looking to feed into this process is to get the best result for Ireland and the European Union.