Ms Noelle O'Connell:

A Chathaoirligh agus baill an Choiste, is mór agam a bheith libh agus tá mé an-bhuíoch as an gcuireadh teacht chun cainte libh inniu ar ábhair fhíorthábhachtacha dúinne i nGluaiseacht na hEorpa in Éirinn, agus daoibhse mar choiste gan amhras. I thank the Chair and the distinguished members of the committee. My colleague, Mr. O’Shea, and myself are delighted to have this opportunity to engage and address the committee here today on behalf of EMI. It is lovely to be back in person, given that the most recent couple of presentations were done virtually.

It is a privilege to be here and, as the Chair, outlined we will discuss EMI’s annual Ireland and EU poll and the Conference on the Future of Europe. Both these topics and the insights presented by them have particular significance this year, because not only have we marked the 50th anniversary on 10 May 2022 of the vote by the Irish people to join the then EEC, we will mark our formal accession on 1 January 2023. Next year also marks the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. While I will not go into that too much in my opening remarks, we will be happy to discuss it further during our exchanges later.

As members well know, since 2013, when Ireland held the rotating Presidency of the Council of the EU, we in EMI have carried out annual, independent polling on how people throughout the country view Ireland’s relationship with the European Union. This year, as a special marking of Ireland EU 50, we carried out our research in two parts. We presented the first set of findings on 9 May, coinciding with Europe Day and with 50 years since the referendum. We presented and published our second set of findings on 21 September, which was last week.

Going back to May, and to the stalwart question that we pose each year, we found that support for Ireland remaining a member of the EU increased by 4% since last year’s finding to 88%. The May 2022 poll also found that 76% of respondents agreed that they have a good understanding of how the EU works.

However, our September poll found that 56% of people in Ireland believe that the EU is moving in the right direction. While a slight increase of 3% from past year, it does nonetheless show a gap between the 88% who support Ireland's EU membership and those who believe the EU is going in the right direction. It is perhaps a useful cautionary reminder.

We found that young people, those in the 18- to 34-year-old demographic, and the older cohort of people aged between 55 and 65 plus, had the strongest level of belief that the EU is moving in the right direction, up to 69% in some instances. While those in the middle cohort of the 35- to 54-year-olds being the most pessimistic. Interestingly, that mirrors a similar trend that we found across a number of questions.

Turning topically and understandably to the issues of climate change and the energy crisis, 58% agree that member states should be allowed to delay meeting EU environmental targets to deal with the current energy crisis.An overwhelming majority of people – some 86% – are concerned that the cost-of-living crisis is harming the EU economy. When we asked if the euro has been positive for Ireland, support remained high at 72% but, interestingly, represents a 14% decline on 2019 when we last posed this question when 86% of people then believed that the euro was positive for Ireland.

As the Russian invasion of Ukraine now enters its seventh month, 65% of people are in favour of Ukraine joining the EU, while 62% of people, when we turn to the topic of enlargement, agree that the EU should continue to allow more countries to join. The poll also shows that half of people believe the security situation in Europe means that Ireland should increase its defence spending. In our poll when we asked if Ireland should be part of increased EU defence and security co-operation, 59% agreed, which was up 5% from the previous year.

Turning to Northern Ireland, some 57% supported the protocol on Ireland and Northern Ireland while 35% did not know and 8% disagreed. This is the highest level of do not knows and may indicate that there is a knowledge deficit in this area. Interestingly as well, we saw the greatest levels of divergences across the different age ranges in replies to this question. Up to 50% of those in the younger 18 to 34 year-old demographic stating that they did not know if they supported the protocol. However, we saw increased support and fewer do not knows for the protocol in older age ranges, in particular those over 55 where support levels reached 75%. Meanwhile almost one third of people, some 31%,, believe there will be a united Ireland in the EU in the next ten years, while 43% disagree and 26% do not know. Of any question that we have asked in our polling data, the responses we have received on this issue have remained constant for three years, which is noteworthy in itself going, up or down one or two percentage points within the margin of error every year.

The Conference on the Future of Europe polling, and our annual Ireland in the EU poll, provide but a snapshot of sentiment at a point in time but our community engagement work builds on this to understand the views and ideas of people across the country. This approach was most recently applied to our work on the Conference on the Future of Europe, which concluded the first phase of its work during the summer. Many members of the committee will be familiar with the work of the Conference. I want to mention those Oireachtas Members who were also members of the conference plenary, Deputy Ó Murchú, Senator Higgins, Deputy Richmond, Deputy Niamh Smyth and, separately, Ms Deirdre Clune, Ireland South MEP. I also thank the Minister of State with responsibility for European affairs, Deputy Thomas Byrne, for his strong and consistent support and engagement with the Conference on the Future of Europe process. Many others also engaged with it in the House or through some of the many regional events, and indeed local county councillors as well. This engagement and support of public representatives was vital to contributing to the success of the conference process in Ireland. We in EMI work closely in collaboration with the Minister of State with responsibility for European Affairs and the Department of Foreign Affairs to co-ordinate and organise broad, open, and inclusive events where people shared their ideas and inputted their views around the many key themes of the conference. Due to the pandemic, these events took place virtually and we were delighted when health guidelines permitted these events to take place in person. More than 70 events organised by many different organisations throughout Ireland, which included more than 4,500 people representing people from island communities, minority groups, young people, community activists, our diaspora, the newly arrived Irish people across the island and also our community overseas. For us in European Movement Ireland we made a particular effort to speak to and engage with people outside of the so-called bubble and it was fantastic to see their input and their buy-in. As part of the conference, the multilingual digital platform was launched which received almost 19,000 ideas from more than 53,000 participants across the EU. The strong level of Irish engagement from citizens was with the with the topic of European democracy. Other areas with high levels of engagement included a stronger economy, social justice and jobs, digital transformation, climate change and the environment, education, culture, youth, sport and health.

Interestingly, in our discussions in Ireland, two key themes emerged and were the most dominant. Simply, people wanted better communication about the EU, issues and policies. They want information that is delivered in a simple accessible and digestible way. That came across regardless of which of the panels or the engagements that took place, regionally, geographically or demographically. Second, what we thought was encouraging as well, was that people in Ireland felt that there is untapped potential to share best practice across member states and the EU institutions in policy areas. People want more opportunity to learn how to do things better from our EU neighbours and vice versa. People want information to understand how the EU relates to their lives and how it can make people's lives better.

Complementing the work of EMI on the conference, I was also honoured to serve as Ireland’s national citizens’ representative to the conference plenary. Following an open and independent competition, I, as the national citizens’ representative, and Ms Emmy Coffey Nguyen as the alternate national citizens’ representative had the honour to represent Ireland and present our national recommendations over many days in the European Parliament in Strasbourg last winter and up to the end of May this year. I was appointed to the digital transformation working group and there was a huge level of engagement and input that we were able to feed back into the process throughout Ireland as part of this work.

As members will be aware, the plenary culminated in a report centred on 49 proposals that include more than 320 measures for the EU institutions to follow up on under nine topics. We now need to ensure that these recommendations are followed by tangible, implementable proposals that will deliver on the issues raised. They cannot be allowed to gather dust in some report on a shelf. We want to see action and implementation. Interestingly, the European Parliament responded to the conference by calling for a convention for the revision of the treaties on 9 June, proposing among other things, a reform of voting procedures, more competences in the area of health, the right of initiative for the European Parliament and strengthening rule of law procedures. Earlier this month, the European Commission rowed in behind the call for a convention, with President von der Leyen expressing support during her state of the Union speech.

While many of the proposals do not require treaty change, some may do so and it is certainly evident from these calls for a convention that reform of the treaties is back as a talking point after being somewhat of a taboo subject for some years. Understandably, there is reluctance in terms of potential treaty change. However, a democratic process such as the Conference on the Future of Europe is a very much a two-sided bargain. If people are asked to engage then we cannot ignore the results of that engagement. We believe a lack of follow through on recommendations from the conference will only erode public trust in the EU and any future public engagement.

The conference process was a bold democratic experiment; in fact, it was the world's largest experiment in participatory democracy. Of course, it was not perfect. Perfection is hard and difficult to achieve over one year, but the system of democracy is one we must cherish and hold dear. It is based on evolution - one rooted in change. It rests on the principle of continually striving to be better, more inclusive and more representative. This was something that the citizens and all participants in the conference strongly called for. It is part of that process. Those of us invested must advocate that this wish becomes part of the political infrastructure of the EU.

We know from the conference, our engagement and my own participation as the national citizen representative that people in this country want to be engaged in what the EU is doing, have their voices heard and contribute their opinions. From our perspective in the EMI, we are very clear that we want this process and dialogue to continue, up to and including treaty change, if that proves necessary. It does not have to be the starting-off point, but nor should it be excluded. We welcome the sentiments in this regard expressed by the Taoiseach and Minister of State with responsibility for European affairs. If we waste the opportunity presented by the conference, there will be consequences. Equally, if we grasp the opportunity afforded by it, we will be a little further along on the journey towards a more inclusive, more democratic and better-functioning Europe, which is something we can all aspire to. I thank the members of the committee. I look forward to their questions.