Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The conference was a good exercise in democracy. The Minister of State was very engaged, and not just from an Irish point of view. He attended many of the meetings. We shared flights and the odd coffee during the process.

I am taken by how 95% of the recommendations can already be implemented without even considering treaty change. Something that struck me was that, be it through the work of the working groups or committees within the conference or through plenary, so many of the issues that were cited were ones that the EU was already working on more broadly. This pointed out the communications deficit and was nothing new. As I have said a million times, the EU has been great for quite some time in paying people who give out about it, such as Mr. Nigel Farage, but perhaps not so great in focusing on what it is doing and how people can engage with the process. I was taken by the citizens' panels and the number of people who travelled to various parts of the EU, including Strasbourg. People gave up their weekends to go to Strasbourg for four days and engage with the panels. They deserve a great deal of respect because their contributions were valid.

Despite the difficulties that Covid presented, the exercise that was the Conference on the Future of Europe was the real lesson. How can we have more of these conferences and how do we use this exercise to feed into the European decision-making process? We are unique. We are right on the westerly edge of the EU and, generally, our MEPs come home every week. Our Commissioner has been home a great deal in recent months, as have other Irish figures at European level. There has been engagement by the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste, the Minister of State and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Coveney. That is not necessarily the case in member states with list systems where MEPs only return to their homes for green weeks. How do we communicate that these exercises are happening? Perhaps the lesson is that these exercises are not happening quickly enough or that people are not feeling their impact.

This brings me to the debate on treaty change and, more specifically, QMV. The Minister of State mentioned that we would not be the only member state that would require a referendum if there was treaty change. Is there any other member state that has an automatic requirement? The Danes have usually reached back to that. QMV is discussed at the level of high politics. It is the major topic of debate in the institutional discussion, particularly at Council level, but are we explaining to people how this issue makes a difference to their lives? My take-away from the conference is that many issues that are important at European level get taken away into the world of acronyms and so on and information about how they make people's lives better and why it is important that we are part of the EU get lost on the journey. We might discuss whether we need to consider QMV or how important QMV would be in agreeing sanctions, but is it the greatest issue for European citizens?

I will conclude with a question on the European Council, as the Minister of State and I could speak for hours on the Conference on the Future of Europe if we were given latitude to do so. That would even be before we involved Deputy Ó Murchú - that would be another ten hours. Given what was put together for Brexit and Covid, what preliminary discussions have there been on European-level financial packages to support member states, including Ireland but most likely those in the east of the EU, in dealing with the challenges that the looming winter will bring due to the impact of Russia's war in Ukraine?