Ms Noelle O'Connell:

We might do a bit of a two-hander, if that is okay. I might ask my colleague Ms Hayes to talk on the migration question. I thank the Deputy for his comments and questions.

The Deputy correctly identified the trajectory in terms of the response. In old money, 82% when I did my leaving certificate was an A grade. I am not sure where it stands now. It is still incredibly high and remains consistently high. It is one of the highest levels of support, which is borne out in all the Eurobarometer surveys in Ireland. It peaked at 93% in 2019, in the halcyon days of all the Brexit challenges and negotiations. The Deputy is absolutely right that it points to the fact that the support is strong, but we cannot rest on our laurels. We must continue to engage.

The Deputy raised an interesting question on Northern Ireland. For many years, we asked the question as to whether people believed there would be a united Ireland in the EU within the next ten years. In terms of feedback and engagement, and I know from engaging with the Deputy’s colleagues and Members of the Oireachtas on this, it is always a good sign to continue to evolve, adapt and take on board feedback with regard to the poll. We commissioned an independent research company, Amárach, to carry out this poll on our behalf. Regarding the question we asked, we can provide the full deck and the breakdown that goes into the demographics in greater detail of the polling of about 1,200 people being asked whether they had voted originally to remain or leave in the Brexit referendum. What we were doing in this question and what we wanted to get a sense of were sentiments in light of the new EU mandate we have and ongoing conversations about the greater question of a potential border poll. Our focus is solely on the EU and whether people would support a united Ireland in the European Union.

We feel that is particularly relevant. That is the key finding and the differentiator for us on this question. We can go into the various specifics on the demographics and send committee members the full breakdown by gender, age, class and region of where people gave feedback on this. This was the finding we found in this poll. We are not precluding or saying how people would vote were that border poll to take place, but we wanted to get a sense of whether people would support a united Ireland in the EU, especially given the work in terms of Brexit.