Mr. Seán Kelly:

Time will tell. Nósfaidh an aimsir. Is maith an scéalaí í.

I was in the middle of responding to Senator Sean D. Barrett, whose father I admired immensely, on an important point about education, particularly at primary level. It is an issue we are highlighting at the education committee in the European Parliament, especially with regard to science and languages. Ireland has failed badly in respect of languages. The one thing I notice in Europe is that the vast majority of people speak two, three or four languages without difficulty. There are opportunities for people as interpreters if they have languages. Two years ago I visited Intel, where a presentation was made to me and I was informed that 25,000 jobs were lost to the sector in Ireland because although we had people with skills they did not have the language skills required. Germans or French people want to deal with people in their own language. The Senator is right; this should start at primary level. Like sport, the younger a person takes up a language, the easier it is for them. Members may have heard of CoderDojo in the Dáil. I took that to the European Parliament. It is helping to fill a void in respect of skills. There are 2 million job vacancies in Europe owing to a lack of ICT skills. To some extent, that is an indictment of educationalists generally and a lack of vision. That is the reason there is a constant need for more interaction among education institutions, business, industry and politicians - to ascertain the trends and ensure those gaps will not occur into the future.

Senator Susan O'Keeffe mentioned connecting with Europe; that is a big problem. There are two things I wish to highlight. First, good news is no news. If one does good work it will not be reported, but if one says something controversial one has a much better chance of being noticed. That is the reality. Second - I have said this in the European Parliament on a few occasions - the European Union is the worst PR machine in the world. For all the good work it does, it gets no credit. Member states will speak about the money they are giving for this and that without any reference to the fact that the money is coming from Europe, and the European Union does nothing about it. There is a major job to be done in looking at the way in which the message is communicated. Initiatives such as this, with MEPs addressing the Seanad, are important in helping to get that message across. If one speaks to any visitor group to the European Parliament I can almost guarantee they will all say they have a far more positive view of Europe as a result of the visit.

Obviously, there is a job to be done in communicating the message.

People give out about the powers of the European Union. Those powers were given to it by the people, or by their governments, in the treaties. If they want to change them, then it is a matter for the people. That point is often lost when discussing what is happening.

I see my good neighbour Senator Paul Coghlan has been joined by other neighbours Senators Sheahan and Moloney.