Mr. Ivailo Kalfin:

I thank the Deputy the kind words and congratulations on our anniversary. We appreciate it.

Especially in the case of Ireland, we have very good dialogue with both social partners and the Government. This is the second time that I have had the possibility of presenting the organisation to the committee. The last time was before a previous Legislature. We are available whenever the committee is discussing these points. This morning, we hosted a Senator who is working on housing and he said it will be very interesting to hear what we find during the discussion. He was asking about good and bad examples of housing policy and accessibility of housing, etc., in different countries. These are things that we can do. If there is a particular subject in our remit, we will be more than happy to provide a brief or if needed, to present the findings so the committee can have a good discussion.

At European level we work often and very well with the European Economic and Social Committee, that is, with our stakeholders. The committee has employers and workers sitting there. We inevitably work often with them. Every year, we have several joint initiatives, including last year's. We work to bring on board the candidate countries in terms of social dialogue and participation in decision-making. Yesterday, we had a major event for our 50th anniversary in Brussels, and we heard an address from the next president of the European Economic and Social Committee, Mr. Séamus Boland, who comes not only from Ireland but from the civil society organisation. He is chair of the civil society group and we had a very promising discussion with him. He made a great intervention. There are many possibilities-----