Ms Noelle O'Connell:

To follow on from that, I will speak about the Irish engagement with the conference. As we mentioned in our opening remarks, 74 events took place with more than 4,500 people taking part, whether in our events, virtually or in events organised by the Department of Foreign Affairs events. Civil society and business groups also organised events and Members of this House organised events and debates as part of the conference process. The level of Irish engagement per head of population was quite high and this is something we can be very proud of. It reflects well on our strong tradition of participatory democratic engagement and the citizens' assembly model was frequently held up among our European colleagues as a best-in-class or best-practice model. A number of randomly selected Irish citizens were chosen to take part and represent Ireland as part of the European citizens' panels. They were active and engaged. It was great to have a European citizens' panel event take place in Dublin Castle. The date had to be rearranged due to the C-word - the Covid pandemic - but it was fantastic and, as the saying goes, we punched above our weight in our active engagement. If I may pay tribute, Members of the Oireachtas, including Deputy Ó Múrchú, attended in Strasbourg and we made interventions at the plenary. That active engagement and input are important, particularly on the working group side.