Mr. Stephen O'Shea:

I can clarify that for the Deputy. By and large, the younger demographic and the older demographic are the most supportive. We tend to see a sort of U curve across many questions. It is among those in the 35 to 54 age range that support falls off. On the EU energy targets question, we found that young people were most likely to disagree with the notion that energy targets should be cast aside because of the current pressures we face. Young people tend to be quite enthusiastic and quite idealistic in their responses. I have some more interesting nuggets. We find "don't knows" higher among females than males quite a lot. At the beginning of the meeting, the Chair mentioned that levels of support are less than the national average in Connacht-Ulster in particular.

On the EPC, personally I thought the state of the Union address was interesting in respect of the President's commitment to grant Ukraine access to certain aspects of the Single Market and to provide mobile roaming rights to Ukraine. It is interesting in terms of the debate about the EPC. It could be an interesting structure around which to build co-operation whereby you grant aspiring member states some of the privileges and rights of membership before membership actually takes place. That is a way to keep them engaged and to reward progress or whatever you want to call it. Perhaps there is potential for a structure which would provide some of the benefits of membership while being on the road to membership because as we know the accession process is long and tortuous. We see that in the western Balkans where people tend to find it difficult to keep communities and populations engaged. That is just a personal view on that aspect of the matter.