Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)

I am really glad the Deputy raises this because I raise it all the time. There has to be and there will be a focus on schools. It is really important that this Presidency involve all the people of Ireland, most particularly the next generation of committed Europeans in this country. That opportunity, as the Deputy says, to expose young people to the first Presidency they will have lived through from their own country is really important. I have already had conversations with the Minister for Education and Youth about what a legacy for our schools could look like. I do not want to pre-empt that but we have seen in the past how we have done things like the commemoration of 1916 and how a legacy was left to our schools. We need to consider that, and the Minister, Deputy McEntee, is working on that. There are also, as part of the stakeholder engagement, a number of planned engagements with schools directly by both me and the Minister of State with responsibility for European affairs, Deputy Byrne. There will be stakeholder meetings, there will be written consultation and those stakeholder meetings will be across the generations and in a whole variety of settings.

Finally, the cultural programme being developed by the Minister, Deputy O'Donovan, will also be an important part of this and a real opportunity to showcase Irish culture during those six months.

See this speech in context