Last Wednesday the National Forum on Europe met and debated with members of the Emediate academic group - a body that has been invited by the European Commission to study how the media addresses European issues, writes Garret FitzGerald
There was constructive interaction between our politicians and these academics, who had earlier had an opportunity to discuss these issues with Irish political journalists, some of whom had reported from Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg.
Over the last 45 years I have had an opportunity to view the EU institutions from several different angles.
First in the early 1960s as a journalist and also as a university lecturer, bringing with me to Brussels in 1962 almost all the academic economists from both parts of this island.
Then, during the decade prior to Irish accession, I visited Brussels frequently as a consultant, helping to prepare Irish industry for EU membership.
And, in the mid-1970s, I represented our government at meetings of the General Affairs Council of Foreign Ministers, and attended European Council meetings with taoiseach Liam Cosgrave. I appeared in that capacity myself at European Council meetings between 1981 and 1986.
Throughout this period of almost half a century I have observed the manner in which EU activities have been reported by our media.
I have admired the dedicated work of our journalists accredited to Brussels, but sometimes shared their frustration at how their reports were truncated or perhaps even ignored by their editors at home under pressure from domestic events.
Brussels correspondents have a difficult task. They must, of course, give special attention to meetings at which Irish Ministers are representing their country, or where an Irish Commissioner has a key role.
They sometimes come under great political pressure to report favourably on the Irish "performance" - whether or not that performance justifies such treatment.
A senior Irish figure once bluntly told an Irish correspondent in Brussels: "Your job is to make me look good."
He got a rapid and equally blunt response to this extraordinary instruction.
When Irish politicians perform well - as has very often been the case - our journalists are naturally delighted to report such successes.
Yet when a Minister occasionally makes mess of it, or despite his or her best efforts does not succeed in winning a battle on behalf of some Irish interest, it is their job to report the facts even in the face of political displeasure.
In my experience Irish journalists in Brussels have been better than many of their colleagues from other member states in carrying out their duties.
Much of the reporting by many journalists from large countries such as France and Italy has been notoriously sycophantic vis-à-vis their governments.
And many British journalists are required by their editors, on behalf of their proprietors, to report negatively on everything happening in Brussels.
In the case of some papers this involves reporting failure on every issue involving the British government.
Conscious of these reporting problems, at the start of our first presidency of the council in 1975 I initiated a system of general presidency briefings in advance of each council meeting.
This aimed to pre-empt attempts by ministers to get away with claiming spurious "victories" at their post-council press conferences. Yet this initiative was instantly dropped by the following presidency.
A persistent problem to which no solution has yet been found is the habit of governments - our own included - claiming credit for every popular EU decision, while blaming "Brussels" for every EU decision that proves less popular at home.
The only case where such a claim can be justified is the very rare case where a decision is taken by a majority vote in which the government in question has voted against.
I think it would be a very good thing for the media and Brussels journalists to regularly expose this very prevalent political chicanery, which has done huge damage to the public perception of the EU.
This could be done by responding to any such dishonest claims by revealing that in almost all of these cases the government either supported the decision it was now repudiating or failed to oppose it at the time.
An unsatisfactory feature of Irish reporting on Europe has been the inadequacy of serious reporting on the work of the European Parliament. On almost all issues this body now has equal power with the Council of Ministers, i.e. the power to block legislation proposed by the commission and adopted by the Council of Ministers.
This power enables the parliament to force the commission and council to accept amendments to legislation where their judgment suggests a need for such changes.
Would that our own party-whipped legislature had such power domestically.
Another feature of the parliament is the system of reports on European concerns prepared by members appointed to research such issues.
Of course, as in any parliament, only a minority of members have the necessary capacity to undertake what is often a heavy task - usually involving a good deal of research and often taking a year or more to complete.
When Irish MEPs undertake important work of this kind it must be heartbreaking for them to find that often virtually no one in Ireland ever hears anything about what they have achieved. This is because our media are rarely interested in serious political work of this kind.
There is little excuse for the failure of our newspapers to report on the work of the European Parliament as most of its meetings take place across the street in Brussels from the council and commission.
True, once a month it meets in Strasbourg rather than Brussels, but that is no excuse for ignoring its work as coverage of these Strasbourg sessions is filmed by the parliament.
A key example of an Irish achievement in this area was the huge effort put in by Munster MEP John Cushnahan to end the civil war in Sri Lanka between that country's government and the Tamils.
This was big news throughout south Asia but few in Ireland were ever allowed to hear about what John achieved.