Ms Banotti, MEP:

I am sure many Senators have had a fair amount of experience in that regard. I have tried in my own work to publish a monthly newsletter in one of the Dublin free sheets, hoping some of the information will get out. One must accept that most MEPs have, at this stage, become almost resigned to being treated with contempt and forgotten about. That is unfortunately what we must accept. While some members of the press are interested in our work, and we are lucky that both our main newspapers keep a permanent correspondent in Brussels, the kind of day-to-day work we do is largely unrecorded and almost inexplicable to the general public. We are unhappy about that. We try to do our best and are usually extremely grateful for opportunities to speak to schoolchildren and special interest groups to let them know what we are about out there.

Ms Banotti, MEP:

There are 19 committees in the Parliament, and we now have a very good spread of MEPs on them. However, when I was elected in 1984, it was clear there was only one issue about which anyone was concerned here, namely agriculture. I am not sure of the exact numbers, but I would say that well over 50% of Irish MEPs served on the agriculture committee at that stage. We had no coverage on many other issues. I was therefore extremely happy to serve on the environment committee.