Ms Noelle O'Connell:

If pupils can log on to Europeanmovement.ie/citizens-dialogue, they will find all the information they require and can upload their videos through our YouTube channel there. I will try to respond now to the questions put by the committee members, but can go through this in greater detail if I have time later.

With regard to the Chairman's questions and comments on our accountability report, this is the second year of the report, which is very much a live document. Meetings such as this afford us the opportunity to engage with the members of this committee to get their feedback and input. One of the new developments in our report this year was to compare how Ireland performs with the rest of the member states. This came about as a result of feedback and conversations with people like the members of this committee and MEPs. I hope we have demonstrated clearly that we recognise the limits of the report, in that it is based primarily on quantifying statistically attendance and other information, which does not tell the whole picture. However, we feel it ensures and promotes openness, transparency and accountability, which are an important part of any democracy. The Chairman asked about the league table and attendance at other Oireachtas committees. We did not do that for last year's report, but that is something we could consider, were it not for the lack of resources. From our perspective, the most important committee to report on is the Oireachtas Joint Committee on European Union Affairs and that is the one we attend and send staff to every week.

The Chairman praised the engagement of the Minister of State, Deputy Creighton. She plays a hugely important role and has been very supportive of our organisation. We are involved with her and her officials and her Department and the Department of the Taoiseach on a huge range of programmes and projects. She is engaging in our pre-Presidency conferences and she has been prominent in driving the Blue Star programme. She has also given a number of Presidency briefings to our members and to the broader Irish NGO civil society network. We fully appreciate how engaged and committed she is. I would like to draw the Chairman's attention to page 54 of our report, where we state it must be noted that for four of the General Affairs Council meetings, the committee was not in place and for one meeting the Dáil was still in the summer recess. We endeavour to qualify and highlight the statistical information in so far as we can. Our accountability report is fact based, but this has associated limitations. We are very grateful for the work this committee is doing and its increasing level of engagement and support the committee's efforts to increase its profile in that regard.

Deputy Dooley asked about the statistics on attendance, agendas and participation and how best to elicit, qualify and quantify the input and work programme of Ministers in this regard. That would be a challenge and if we were to do that our report would certainly not stop at 55 pages. Due to resource capacity, that is something that must be left for another day, but we will try to expand the report and give added value by looking at the outcomes. In respect of tracking work on sectoral committees, this is an area we can consider developing.

However, we believe the set of figures for 2013 that we are currently compiling and analysing is fairly meaty and worthwhile. We are as satisfied as we can be with where we are going with our 2012 report.

Senator Healy Eames raised an important point about tracking, analysing and following through on the various forms of legislation that are drawn up. With respect, our report tries to focus on the triangulation of that information. We find the lack of Irish influence at the pre-legislative input stage, which Deputy Crowe also touched on, very worrying. We feel quite strongly that there is an onus on the Oireachtas, on the various bodies in this sector, including European Movement Ireland as a not-for-profit civil society organisation, on businesses, on trade unions and on citizens to make an input into the various Commission consultations and thereby ensure our voices are heard in that regard. This is not the sole responsibility of organisations like European Movement Ireland - we all have that responsibility. One of the findings we came across when we were publishing this report was that it is not always easy for Irish people to have their voices heard. The various directorates general often use different e-mail addresses for the receipt of submissions, but in some cases, the e-mail address is no longer active. We have written to the European Commission to make a number of suggestions that would simplify the process, which would tie in very well with its stated goals and objectives for 2013, as the European Year of Citizens.