Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses. In conclusion, from my own perspective, there are a couple of things that always stand out in this and we discussed this at the last one as well. I find the figure on how the European Movement Ireland gets their information and the fact that social media accounted for 10% ,and 13% on the female side, strikes me as remarkably low in this day and age. The Northern Ireland figures are a little bit higher, but it is interesting considering we are constantly told of how information is now provided and how people now access it. I appreciate we have to look at the drop down into the ages because it is probably 0% of over 65s and it is probably thirty something percent in the 18 to 24 category, but it is interesting that there is still that very substantial link back to traditional media.

The bog standard general first question is always whether we should remain a member of the EU. On the younger age group perspective, it is interesting that is the highest cohort of support at 91%. That is a positive thing in lots of ways. Methodologies have to be decided and what is done with questions has to be decided, but if one randomly picks any 1,200 people and asks them questions about how the European system functions, there are people, without being disparaging, working in it and elected into it who I doubt know half the time how the thing works. That is not an insult to them and it is not an insult to the EU, it is just that there is no roughly equivalent structure anywhere in the world. It is a unique structure and it is put together in such a way as to facilitate the co-operation of 27 member states. There are a whole host of areas that make it incredibly difficult in terms of how it functions and how it is driven.

I said earlier, in conjunction with Deputy Howlin's question, that I think a lot of attitudinal questions are driven by what is the perceived issue of the day and asking how that is perceived within Ireland, as the European Movement Ireland is doing, or within other states. That drives the whole definition of what people think of the European Union and how they think it is performing.

The situation relating to Israel and Gaza was overwhelmingly the issue of late 2023 and early 2024 in terms of shaping opinion about how the European Union is working. If we take out the "don't know" responses and look at where the EU is going strongest, and I believe the "don't know" figures are very reasonable for a number of reasons, the environment is still listed as the second issue. Allowing for some of the complexity of this, it is interesting that the environment still comes up. I imagine if we were to conduct the same survey in Lithuania, Estonia or Latvia, defence and security would be close to 46% and not down at 5%.

It is interesting that migration is an issue on which people think the EU is very poor. It says a lot about the level of knowledge that people have about how European migration is handled at EU level. For better or for worse, depending on where we are on the political spectrum, people would be quite surprised to realise that in actual fact control of migration at EU level is stricter than what the US imposes at the border with Mexico. This is the type of fact that is not known. It throws up these very interesting answers.

As always, it is a very interesting snapshot in time. It is a very interesting collection of information. We can try to drill down, as we have, to figure it out. I always say that I would love if European Movement Ireland did some qualitative research with groups as a follow-up to the poll to tease out some of the questions and add to the information. We would then have not just the quantitative information. The poll opens up so many questions. On flicking through it we can pick so many areas where we can wonder what the answers mean.

I thank the witnesses for providing us with the poll. We really do appreciate it. I appreciate the time of the witnesses and that of the interns who came in today. I hope they found it an informative and interesting session. I know some of them. It is always good to have this exchange. Today we are launching one of our own reports and we are going to that now.