Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank everyone for attending. I believe this may be the largest delegation we have ever had at a meeting of the Joint Committee on European Affairs. Maybe some of the online meetings during lockdown were bigger but they were different. It is important to have this dialogue. I thank the president of the European Committee of the Regions, Mr. Tzitzikostas, for his presentation and kindness in not pointing out the weakness of Ireland's local government system, which is the weakest in Europe. We need to do something about that. Mr. Tzitzikostas made the point, perhaps as a result of his natural diplomacy, that we must strengthen the European Parliament, national parliaments and local government. In truth, we need to rebalance the functionality of each of these and that is a job of work for us in Ireland, in particular. Those of us who served in Government bear responsibility for the weakness of local government in Ireland.

Members of the committee engage all the time on Europe and I was taken by the point on communicating the vision and principles of Europe to the citizenry. Everyone has a solution when they appear before us to discuss this. I wonder how many people in Wexford would know what the Committee of the Regions is if I stopped and asked some of them. If I were to ring around the councils, how many councillors would be able to answer that question? That is a very profound issue for those involved to answer. The committee is an intrinsic and fundamental part of the European democratic structure and we need to do something about that collectively as well. Perhaps this dialogue is the start so that those of us interested in European affairs are not in little echo chambers talking about grandiose notions. Even when we go on roadshows on Europe, how many people come to the seminars apart from those who are interested and knowledgeable from the start? There are fundamental issues in that regard.

I have another point to raise before I ask a question. It was said that empowering local authorities is the way to deepen appreciation of Europe and combat growing nationalism or xenophobia. There are an awful lot of elected councillors across Europe who are xenophobic and are sending a different message out. The solution is more complex than that.

From an Irish perspective, I thank the Committee of the Regions for the solidarity shown on Brexit. Many people believed there would not be solidarity from across the Union on the unique requirements of Ireland and did not expect the ongoing expression of solidarity we heard today. We have a very intimate parliamentary system because, as everyone knows, Irish Members of Parliament are very close to the ground. We provide clinics all the time and hear people in a way that is not replicated in every European country. How do parliamentarians link in better with what is happening at European level in terms of the Committee of the Regions to advocate for the sort of direct contact between people, which it has been said is so important?