Fiona O'Loughlin (Fianna Fail)
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I am very proud to have been so. The president is incredibly welcome and it is lovely to see her again. I thank Ms Coughlan for being here too. I know she does a super job representing all nine full members, the alternate members and, indeed, all the councillors here. I acknowledge some of my party colleagues who are here, including Councillor Hoade, Councillor Colleran Molloy, Councillor Cahill and of course Councillor McDonnell, with whom I had the opportunity to serve. I had the chance to say hello to Councillor Lacey and Councillor Blain yesterday evening. I also think it is important to acknowledge Mr. Séamus Boland from Ireland, who will become the president of the European Economic and Social Committee, the other side, on 23 October.

The work being done by the Committee of the Regions is just so important. I feel very privileged because I had an opportunity to be a member of the committee and to see that at first hand and to learn a lot. That has certainly helped to inform me as a politician here in Ireland and also in terms of being progressive and looking to Europe. I agree with many of the comments made in relation to the understanding of the relevance of the Committee of the Regions to our daily lives for people in politics and those not in politics. There is an opportunity, and the president might talk a little about this aspect, regarding how we can learn from best practice across Europe. There are other countries we can learn from and countries that learn from us in relation to things like retrofitting, sustainable transport and biodiversity. I think this learning element is very important.

Something I have thought since I was a member of the Committee of the Regions is that many of its members do a lot of work around forming opinions and getting expertise from those in the field. Where do these reports go? I have always thought there should be an opportunity to present them in our own parliaments. I think this is something we should take up within this committee. I refer to having the opportunity to listen to the members who have developed the opinions and at least be able to make recommendations in that regard. The amplification of local voices in Brussels is greatly important. I can understand that councillors feel disconnected. I support 100% the idea and recommendation that there would be eight people here who would liaise between all the local authorities. I also support the suggestion that the job of local authority members here should be a full-time one.

I have a few small questions because I know I am very caught on time. The relationship between the Committee of the Regions and the MEPs is important from a European context and from a local context because people in both contexts are dealing with the same issues and with the legislation coming through. There has been talk about town councils. I am certainly interested in the perspective of the president because she is dealing with people who are elected directly as mayors as well as those elected via the system we have. There are mixed results. We see this from our experience here. We have only one place where there is a directly elected mayor. Unfortunately, it would appear to me that the local councillors who are also directly elected seem to be bypassed by the directly elected mayor as well. It is a problem. I am interested in hearing more about what was said in this regard.