BACKGROUND:

The Minister of State for European Affairs, Minister Thomas Byrne has been taking part in a series of consultations with young people to feed into the Conference on the Future of Europe next year.

The consultations were hosted by the Department of Foreign Affairs and facilitated by the National Participation Team. Roderic O’Gorman, Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth was also in attendance.

The focus of the consultations was on exploring various themes including Climate Change and the Environment. The interest was on what young people think Europe is doing well and what Europe could improve on. Below is a ranking of the topics that the young people felt were of most importance to young people. Split into three working groups, they developed a presentation for the Minister based on the top three topics.

Rule of Law, Rights and Values, Security in the EU.

Group 1 structured their presentation under five key points: Infringements of human rights; Global Humanitarian Actions; Abortion rights; Freedom of Gender Identity; and Awareness of rights across member states

Education, Culture, Youth and Sport

Group 2 structured their presentation under these topics: the Irish Language, travel and educational opportunities, religious freedom and equal opportunities for LGBTQIA+ in sport

Health

Group 3 structured their presentation under the following themes: Right to try, Sexual and Reproductive Health, Mental Health and Free Healthcare.

Aim of Consultation: 
Views have been captured and will go into a report which will be brought by Minister Byrne, the Irish representative, to the Plenary session of the Conference on the Future of Europe. This will then be available on the FOE conference multilingual website. The conference itself will take place in April 2022

Commitment by Comhairle members:

Tuesday 6th July:  consultation day

Tuesday 13th July: preparatory session to finalise presentation of findings to the Minister

Monday 19th July: Meeting with Minister and presentation of findings