Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank our three speakers. It has been quite illuminating. Professor Fabrini highlighted complacency issues as one of the shortcomings of the current EU Government. The convention was suggested as far back as 2016 as a response to Brexit and the soul-searching that Brexit provoked.

Ms Day touched on it slightly in her presentation. We are in 2020 and it will soon be 2021. Covid happened in 2020. Is there not complacency around the establishment of the convention? Does it not sum up where we are that it has taken five years to get what was seen as an emergency response to the disconnect that the Brexit debate suggested? In the witnesses' view, what is the likely timeline for getting this on the road? Will it be years or, perhaps, the 10th anniversary of the Brexit vote before we get to some sort of conclusion of the process?

We are all into the digital side of things. I welcome that. We have all transformed but there is huge digital exclusion. Those who do not engage in online meetings or online classes in education are the people who are excluded from the European Commission, the European Parliament and the EU generally and do not see them as delivering for them or as being relevant in their lives. In going digital, how do we ensure that we do not further exclude people?

Professor Fabrini pointed to the EU Council and said it has become mightier in the past number of years but he did not say much about the parliament. Given that these are the two institutions that represent elected leaders and directly elected members, what role will they play in the process?

My final question is for Ms Day. It is a little outside of this discussion so I would appreciate some leeway from the Chairman. Ms Day is a former Secretary General of the Commission. She succeeded David O'Sullivan in that role. There is a concern about us no longer having Irish people in that stream. Irish people are not occupying the types of roles previously occupied by Ms Day, Mr. O'Sullivan and other officials. Perhaps we all got a little bit complacent about that. What would Ms Day suggest we should do to try to get back into that stream?