Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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I thank all three witnesses for their wonderful presentations. Deputy Calleary has asked a couple of the questions I had in mind so I will pivot on my feet.

I will touch on one of Dr. Coutts's remarks. He mentioned that we might not require treaty change, but rather treaty amendment. Digging into the legalities of that, would an amendment to the Lisbon treaty, as opposed to a brand new treaty, require a referendum in Ireland, in Dr. Coutts's opinion? It ties into the point Deputy Calleary made about how confident we can be of getting a treaty passed. I would put it another way: should we fear treaty change? After what we have gone through in the past five years, looking at our nearest neighbour, the argument that a lot of people muddied when it came to the European project in previous referendums is perhaps more simplified because we have an alternative. We know what the alternative to European integration is now. Communism has long collapsed but the alternative is clear, namely, that nascent populist nationalism we see quite close to home and not so close to home.

Getting into the process at hand, I was struck by Professor Laffan's reference to expanding the role of national parliaments. Professor Gavin Barrett went into this in quite a bit of detail last week in this committee and it is something I am passionate about. I will talk about the citizen-led aspect in a second, but when we talk about everything to do with Europe, many people allow it to be solely a Brussels-focused discussion, that only MEPs and only the institutions can talk about European issues. There is something lacking, given that national parliamentarians do not take it upon themselves to talk about Europe, except when they have to, when there is a crisis, a referendum or a difficulty. The last few months have shown us how much we rely on the EU, when we look at the announcements in relation to potential vaccinations and the block orders the EU has made that Ireland as a small member state would not have been able to have done if we were not in the EU.

I raise the role of national parliamentarians beyond discussing this and having conversations like we are having this morning, which are useful, in crafting the conference, formulating what the outcome might be, be it treaty change or not. We do not automatically assume we will go there. I asked Professor Barrett last week what role might the Conference of Parliamentary Committees for Union Affairs of Parliament of the European Union, COSAC, play in this. How do we get that co-ordination? The witnesses rightly talk about the large issues. As one goes from member state to member state, the big issues change slightly. Brexit is a massive issue for Ireland; it is less of an issue for Bulgaria. Migration and the refugee crisis is a massive issue for Greece; it is less of an issue for Ireland. What are the big issues where we may need to reform and renew Europe? Health competence is topical at the moment.

Professor Laffan talked rightly about the importance of dialogue and making it citizen-led and Ms O'Connor talked about how European Movement Ireland has been to the forefront of that citizens' dialogue and pushing through that engagement, even though we still have the result that only 20% are aware of this conference. Is that number similar in France?

I will put two questions to Ms O'Connor. What sort of international comparison does she have through the European Movement International network of what other member states are doing and what stage they are at in discussions? What are the big issues that are uniform across the 27 member states?

We talk about how everything has to be done virtually at the moment and this meeting is an example of that. We probably would not have Professor Laffan's presence if we were not doing this virtually so I will talk about the benefits. Are there potential opportunities within dialogues of being able to use technology we are all now so accustomed to in order to reach out further?

It is not all about coming into one central location, be it Dublin, Brussels or Rome, but everyone being able to do it from the comfort of their own home or workplace. The flipside of that, as Deputy Calleary noted previously, is the question of whether we are losing a certain cohort, be it geographic or generational, who might not be as engaged with the online process, and how we maximise the opportunities while not neglecting those who might not have the same level of access.