Mr. David Kitching:

Yes. We are not a campaigning organisation. Legally, we are not allowed to campaign, but we can present research which has its obvious bias; no one makes any bones about that. We cannot campaign directly in any referendum but we have conducted research on the prospect of remaining or leaving, and how it will affect matters in Britain. It is targeted predominantly at a British audience.

Regarding Deputy Eric Byrne's comments, legitimacy is not only an issue at European level. There is a problem of malaise and disillusion with institutions at every level from local democracy to any type of international institution. Part of me wonders if the sense of a political narrative is gone from politics. People describe dysfunction in terms that are misleadingly ethical. A harsh welfare cut is described as a hard choice. A tax evader is an innovator. The way in which language is coloured and the way political discourse has been reduced to spin and a game of public relations is hugely damaging to politics.

I wish to quote from the late Tony Judt's final book. In a highly critical piece on political leadership since the 1990s, he stated: "Convinced there is little they can do, they do little." There is a feeling of impotence and the idea that politics has been superseded by unaccountable elements, whether that be from financial institutions or, even at European level, the technocratic image of the European Commission and other agencies. All the members have mandates directly from their constituents but if people believe that is superseded by something that is unaccountable - a mysterious market or a technocratic official - it will damage it. That is not just a question for people in Brussels; it is a question for every capital across the world.

On the big strong boys, so to speak, and putting trust in weaker countries, there are mutual interests among smaller states when it comes to certain institutional matters but these have often been superseded by short-term interest. The smaller triple A countries will go along with the preferences of the larger countries.

The Deputy referred to personalisation and people needing to see the faces of Commissioners rather than those of UKIP members. It always helps to be able to put a face to the people who make the decisions that affect their lives. The point I was trying to make when I discussed the problems of elitism in certain quarters in Brussels, and this is not universal, is that it appears there has been a level of disengagement. That might be due partly to the fact that in media terms there has not been the evolution of a sufficient European public sphere in the sense that comments can sometimes be made in Brussels and aside from in one's own member state, they will not go back to other people. Someone from the Socialists and Democrats Group in the European Parliament elected from a list in Austria can say something and no one in Ireland will hear about it, unless it is specifically to do with Ireland or is controversial at a wider level.

In terms of those type of links between national parliaments and the European Parliament, one of the conundrums is that while people are directly answerable to the local electorate, which is positive in terms of democratic legitimacy, there is little incentive to talk about Europe. When any member is interviewed by journalists as they go about their business here, it will not always be relevant to their overall prospect to talk about Europe. That is understandable but I do not know how to change it.