 The railway privilege for us to be joined today by Dr Catherine Day. Dr Day has had a long and distinguished career in the European institutions, most known to be as former Secretary General of the European Commission. You're currently chair of the Irish Government Citizens' Assembly on Gender Equality. Dr Day, we're really delighted you're here with us and we're looking forward to hearing Europeans on the future of Europe. Thank you very much, I'm delighted to have the opportunity. Thank you. However, I might just start today, as a particularly pert outgoing day in European Council, to sitting the new leaders in institutions are all in office and typically the relationship between these different actors has been a mix of collaboration and conflict. Do you think the institutions will be able to find consensus to deliver on the ambitious objective set out in the European Strategic Agenda? I think that the new leaders of different institutions yna hypnodd yn ffosibl i gyddig i ddiwedd, a'r hynny'n ymddangos i'r ddiwrnodd cymhreid. Yr hynny'n ddigonwch yn ymgyrch ar gael y llanolau llyfradol yn ddiolch ar y llyfrgynt. I think Brexit also underlines to everybody across the EU, the value of the EU, what it means to be part of the EU. And so I think that will give a bit of an impetus to defining a new agenda for the European Union. And the people who are currently taking up important roles of responsibility come into institutions that are already up and running the commission has been there since the beginning. The Parliament has got more powers now than it ever had and even the office of president of the European Council is now on its third president. So there are ways of communicating, ways of working together. Having said that, I think the makeup of the current European Parliament elected before the summer is more complicated. And I do think it will be more difficult and take longer to find a majority support for the proposals that will come out of the different institutions. I believe we will still have a majority for pro-MEU centre-ground policies, but it will be a bit slower and more difficult to get there than it was in the past. I'm just sticking on the theme of the institutional dynamics. One of the proposals of President von der Leyen is the idea of introducing an inter-institutional work programme, a joint declaration really of legislative priorities. Why would this be such a significant innovation and do you think it has any chance of success? Well, I think it's a very good idea because I believe if we had a commonly agreed work programme, every part of the EU would be able to explain coherently to our citizens what is the EU going to be doing in the next five years. People don't like surprises and I think it would be a very good way of explaining what Europe does and that Europe is doing things that can only be done at European level, like climate change, like dealing with migration, like standing up for Europe's values around the world. So I think it's an excellent idea. I think it would be a lot of negotiation to decide what goes in and what does not. I would hope that it would be fairly focused and not too large agenda. The other advantage I think would be if everybody signs up at the beginning to these are our priorities, then the council at the parliament should make time and give priority to putting those proposals through when the commission has proposed them. So I think as a communication tool and as a way of streamlining the agenda with the very good ideas, so I hope that President von der Leyen will succeed. And you touched there on explaining the European Union to citizens. There's talk of holding a conference on the future of Europe and France and Germany have already thrown their ideas into the ring. What role do you think small states such as Ireland should look to play in the planning of this conference and indeed in the realisation of it? I think in every country people feel that there's a need to make extra efforts to get the population involved. We see the lesson of Brexit where people felt alienated from the membership of the EU and we don't want that to happen anywhere else. So I think there's great merit in having citizen involvement and to allow people the opportunity to express their views and to be informed because the EU is complicated and you can't explain it in a single sound bite. But my own experience is that when you give people information and when you give them enough time to ask questions and to be informed then you get very interesting answers from them and that should be the basis of the future policy. I think the challenge is that you will get very different answers from different parts of the EU but the challenge then is to find the common elements and to move forward as a union. I think Ireland is well used to these kinds of debates and we have strong opinions but I think we need to define what we want the EU to be and what the UK has left. Because we've never known EU membership without the UK, we joined on the same day. They are now leaving and we are staying. This will change what the EU is and I think we would really benefit from having a debate about what is the kind of a view we want post the UK departure. On that then, it's a short question but a very complex one. What's the niche should Ireland seek to carve for itself in the EU after Brexit? I don't think there's a particular niche. I think we have a lot of interest with some of the bigger countries, a lot of the smaller countries. I think we have a huge interest in keeping Europe open to the outside world. I think Irish people are very touched by the core values of the EU, about individual rights and freedoms that come with responsibility, about helping developing countries, about investing in the regions. I think we are very rolling in the mainstream of the agenda. What I think we need to do is to look ahead and to see where do we want to further emphasise certain policies and where do we think perhaps some things are better left to the member's data and to be done nationally rather than to do it in Ireland. Dr Day, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much. Thank you very much.