Barry Ward (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)

We have a very good history of having strong, well-organised and productive Presidencies in this country, and I look forward to the same thing next year. I particularly welcome what the Tánaiste has said about the public consultation around the priorities for the Presidency. That is very welcome and very important. Could he give us details of how the public will have an opportunity to contribute to that? Obviously, it will be done at national level, but will it be done also in schools, for example? Many children around the country will be seeing an Irish Presidency for the first time. What steps will we take to ensure that their teachers know about it, that they have an opportunity to feed into it and that their ideas are included in the considerations for those priorities as well as the cultural agenda that we will have during the second six months of next year?

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