Seán Haughey (Dublin Bay North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will start with the EU poll. One thing that struck me is in relation to the Ireland and the Northern Ireland protocol. That 34% do not know whether they support it. That is a surprise given the amount of publicity the protocol is getting. There obviously is a job of work to do for the Government, the Oireachtas and dare I say it, by European Movement Ireland as well to try to explain the importance of that.

Generally speaking, support for the EU is strong in Ireland, give or take slight variations here and there on some of the questions and that is a good thing. Could witnesses clarify a point on the age cohorts? I know they made some reference to the older demographic and the younger demographic. Perhaps I picked it up wrong or is there a sense that younger people are less supportive of the EU, or aspects of the EU, because that would be a surprise to me on the basis of the Brexit referendum whereby the young people by and large supported remaining and it was the older people who wanted to leave? I would be interested to know whether there is a sharp divergence between young people and old people's attitudes to the EU.

On the conference, I would like to thank European Movement Ireland for the work that it did, and Deputy Ó Murchú and others. They did the State some service I would say by their participation in that and we do all appreciate it. It is great to see Ireland strongly represented.

I want to zone in on two issues. I worry a little about the proposal for a European political community put forward by President Macron and supported by the European Commission President. Is that seen as a substitute for full membership of the European Union or how do the witnesses see that working in practice? Is the proposal by President Macron something they would support? One would wonder if this is getting into a two-tier Europe in terms of membership and I would be interested in witnesses' views on that.

The second question relates to treaty change and the proposal for a convention on treaty change, supported by the European Parliament and the European Commission. A number of issues arise there: switching from unanimity to qualified majority voting; strengthening EU competence in health and energy; incorporating the pillar of social rights into the treaty and providing the European Parliament with a right to legislative initiative.

They are some of the issues that could be embraced by treaty change. Like Senator Chambers, I worry about it in an Irish context although I am probably not too afraid of it, I suppose.

Which issues does EMI think are important in respect of treaty change? What are the most important things we could do? I feel that treaty change should be limited and very clear-cut. It should not be wide-ranging because we are talking about a referendum.

Finally, the opening statement mentioned plans for the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of our joining the EU next year. Are plans being formulated at this stage?