The National Forum on Europe travels west this week. It will host a plenary session in Galway city on Thursday and a regional meeting in the Connemara Gaeltacht on Friday.
The full plenary session in Galway, chaired by Senator Maurice Hayes, will start at 11 a.m. in the Radisson Hotel. The meeting is open to the public and speakers will include Ms Patricia O'Donovan, assistant secretary general of the International Labour Organisation, and Prof Gerard Quinn, of NUI, Galway. Anthony Cronin, Colm Ó Briain, and Michael D. Higgins, Labour TD for Galway West, are also expected, according to the forum organisers.
Subjects down on the agenda include "What social model for a changing Europe?" and within this model, what should the proper balance be between the EU, member-states, the regions and civil society. The session will also address cultural and national identity in an enlarging Europe.
Among the groups expected to attend will be the Galway for Democracy and Neutrality group, which says that a second Nice Treaty referendum would represent an attack on democracy.
The following evening, Friday March 1st, Mr Hayes will host a public meeting in Óstán An Cheathrú Rua at 8 p.m.
Socialist TD Mr Joe Higgins will be the first speaker for the event, and the forum organisers say that he will be joined by a panel of politicians representing all of the parties and groupings participating in the forum.
The meeting in Connemara is being organised in the context of the forum's programme of regional public meetings.
The forum organised eight of these meetings around the country in January, and these were attended by more than 1,500 people. It is envisaged that the event in An Cheathrú Rua will be conducted primarily through Irish, with simultaneous translation available.
It is expected that Comdháil Náisiúnta na Gaeilge will present views on recognition of Irish in the EU. The Government's Common Fisheries Policy Strategy Review Group will be represented.
On February 27th, the evening before the first session, the chairman is to give a talk at the NUI Galway Political Discussion Society on the forum's work.