Professor John O'Brennan:

I will make one final point about how this all connects to communicating Europe. Sometimes we are too self-congratulatory when we see Eurobarometer figures suggesting that we consistently have the highest or second-highest level of support for the European Union. We know there have been important rejections of the European Union in two recent referendums. We should not take anything for granted. We should see the recruitment issue as part of a wider effort to communicate Europe. We were well on the way before the Covid, when the Government was committed to citizens' dialogues. There is a good case for arguing that we should have a permanent citizens' assembly that could move around the country to talk about European issues and that its membership would not just consist of vested interests and people like us. It would make an effort to communicate to people what Ireland is doing in the European Union, why it is significant and how it impacts on individuals and their communities. This would necessarily involve long-term investment. We are better than many other jurisdictions. The Brexit saga has probably helped to inform people more. If we look back at failed referendums in the past, however, what emerges again and again is the lack of knowledge people had, the lack of confidence they had in their ability to exercise judgment about the significance of a particular treaty and to go into the ballot box. We should not take anything for granted. We should involve schools in particular and the more we can connect schools to policymakers in this House and in Brussels the better. That kind of long-term investment will ensure we can avoid the kind of dreadful scenario that played out in Britain in 2016. In an era of vast disinformation, it is more important than ever that people can talk about the European Union rationally and with the help of factual evidence rather than the kind of hysteria you often get in these discussions.