Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. Shotter for that very detailed presentation and for sending the slides to us in advance. I want to touch on a couple of issues but I will start with his final comments on the external dimension. What steps does he believe should be taken to deal with third countries? Is there a risk of being overly reliant on third countries, which may start to have a slightly different approach to this issue? We have seen that in wider EU external negotiations in recent weeks and months. Is the allowance for differential responses within member states creating a risk also? We are speaking here in Dublin. Ireland is located at the most western tip of Europe where dealing with a refugee crisis is not necessarily an immediate challenge. It is a long way to come here but is there a risk in terms of the different approaches by member states depending on the political mood within member states?

Touching on the political mood and the public mood, I would appreciate hearing some of Mr. Shotter's thoughts in this regard. This issue has gone back to the Council but what is the more precise role of the parliaments of the member states? We have been discussing the migration refugee crisis for some time.

Mr. Shotter has been working on this at the highest level for many years, but still the discussion, unfortunately, can sometimes be too Brussels-centric. Trying to get public buy-in requires a greater buy-in from member state parliaments. I would appreciate Mr. Shotter's thoughts on how we can involve member state parliaments to a greater extent than just having ad hocmeetings of committees such as this one. It is great that there is a detailed focus on this topic, which was suggested by Senator Chambers from the outset. Is that being repeated by other member states?

To conclude and tie it all together, what is the next step for the pact?