Ms Deirdre Forde:

It is a great pleasure to be here and to listen to the words of wisdom. It is great to have a two-way flow of communication. The importance of being able to counteract negativity in relation to the EU, even at local level, has been mentioned. Deirdre Clune, MEP, and I had a grassroots engagement in Cork in July of this year. Unfortunately, it was the hottest time of the year. It is not easy to bring people to public meetings in such circumstances. It struck me that people were delighted to be asked for their opinions on what they like and do not like about the EU. Everyone who spoke wanted stability, which is fine. Obviously, everyone was concerned about Brexit, justice and social cohesion. I was able to relay that back to the EU. As a result, I was asked to speak in Helsinki a week ago. Those involved wanted to know what specifically we are doing in Cork and across the country about climate action, and what we need from the EU to help us. It is very significant that we can hone in on specific issues of concern to us. Some local authorities are starting to communicate what supports are available from the EU in this area, whereas others have a little homework to do. That is where we come in. We are now discussing the RACSs with the regional authority. We can articulate that the Government and the EU are making a lot of funding available and that such supports should be disseminated through the regional assemblies down into the local authorities. If we are not at the starting gate, we will lose out because the money will follow the policy.

In short, I think we should be having more dialogue with people because they teach us. They learn from us and we learn from them, and barriers are broken down. In my experience since becoming a member of the Committee of the Regions, small business people, teachers and gardaí are the same in every country. They want peace, stability and jobs. The local authorities have an issue with going to China and the US to build a context for jobs and businesses We have to look more to Europe as we continue to try to match our businesses with businesses in the other 27 member states.