Ms Noelle O'Connell:

I advise the committee to watch this space for our plans to mark the anniversary on 1 January 2023. We have lots in store. As I know Deputy Haughey is aware, it is very much a 24-month process, if we can do it that way. We see it as part of the ongoing work we are doing. We would appreciate the ongoing support and engagement of the members for the Ireland EU50 competition for primary, post-primary and third levels. It is an initiative of the Government and the Department of Foreign Affairs and is supported by the Department of Education. It involves encouraging all young people across the country to enter a competition on what Ireland EU50 means to them. That is a big part of the work that we will be doing. We will be commemorating it digitally as well. We are doing a digital anthology on Ireland's EU relationship. We are also publishing a series of papers called 50 steps to 50 years of membership. We see it as a way of getting people to engage, looking forward to the type of EU that people in Ireland want to be part of, and examining how we shape and influence that for the next 50 years. It is a really ambitious range of projects and programmes across our different streams.

Also on engagement, we were delighted to have the Taoiseach do an "in conversation" podcast moderated by Professor Brigid Laffan in which he shared his reflections. We hope to continue the EU 50 podcast in the coming months and in the year ahead. We will keep the committee members engaged as ever. I thank the Deputy for his support on that.

The Deputy made a really good point on the European political community, EPC. EMI supports anything that can encourage debate and engagement on the EU and all matters European but we believe the EPC must be complementary and must not be a substitute for enlargement and for that process. As we have seen in our Ireland and the EU poll, 62% of people are very much aligned with the Government's priorities of supporting enlargement and accession countries. There is a high level of support for enlargement. We do not want to see the EPC being a substitute. We are living in an increasingly geopolitically challenged and more diverse continent. With Brexit, which none of us wanted or welcomed, how we navigate and engage with countries that are not part of the EU, the multilateral world order and the rule of law system is something that the EU saw as part of the conference process. People want the EU to be more robust and to be a beacon for the values on which it was founded.

I absolutely understand the point about treaty change and referendums and hear where the Deputy is coming from. What we hear across our counterparts and networks is that the possibility of this happening imminently has probably waned and is somewhat on the back burner. There is certainly reluctance among member states, notwithstanding the views of the Parliament and the Commission. This can only happen with political will. We must see where it aligns. We are not calling for treaty change for the sake of it. We have always been very clear that we want a better, more reflective and more efficiently functioning EU that responds in an agile and proactive manner to the needs, wants and wishes of all its citizens, notwithstanding the challenges. The geostrategic transformation of Europe which is going on at the moment is something we need to keep an eye on.

On some of the changes and how we look at things like qualified majority voting in the foreign policy arena, we think there is a way to look at this via the Passerelle clause and others, as I mentioned. We saw with the fiscal compact treaty how workaround solutions can come about. That is something where there is precedent. The next generation of EU funding is also an example of the EU nimbly working to come up with solutions at short notice.

Mr. O'Shea might like to come in on the younger demographic.