We must encourage energy conservation and sustainable development. Young people are the ones who are most environmentally conscious in Ireland, so that to some extent they are educating their parents. They are tackling issues of waste disposal and so on. The schools help, because they put a lot of stress on environmental awareness.

I think that we have refined greatly our notions of sovereignty in the EU. Its members consider themselves to be sovereign governments, but they have ceded a part of their sovereignty to the Union level, and their sovereignty is now penetrated by EU law.

When we see companies who are in complicit relationships with China, for example, making huge profits by providing China with the very software that enables the state to censor its own people, that is not acceptable. We need to engage with such companies to make their responsibilities clear.

I'm a very wide reader. I read serious books and I read airplane, forgettable books. I never have fewer than four or five books beside my bed at night. I particularly enjoy reading about people who have gone through a personal growth.

The first thing to recognize is how fortunate Ireland is to be an island off the west coast of Europe, and therefore helped by the prevailing winds to escape the effects of acid rain and other problems. We were also lucky not to have had the same kind of industrial revolution and industry as some other countries. Our problem now is to create employment, but to do it in ways that value our environment.

We must understand the role of human rights as empowering of individuals and communities. By protecting these rights, we can help prevent the many conflicts based on poverty, discrimination and exclusion (social, economic and political) that continue to plague humanity and destroy decades of development efforts. The vicious circle of human rights violations that lead to conflicts-which in turn lead to more violations-must be broken. I believe we can break it only by ensuring respect for all human rights.

We now know that climate change is a driver of migration, and is expected to increase the displacement of populations.