EUROPEAN AFFAIRS:IRELAND EXISTS in a "comfort zone of complacency" when it is content to compare itself to European averages, former president of the European Parliament Pat Cox told an Oireachtas committee.

Mr Cox said Ireland tended to follow cultural and political examples from the United States and Britain because of the ties of language and history, but the State needed to “raise its game” at EU level.

“We have a chronic absence of curiosity about how other states work and function . . . I think we find a comfort zone of complacency when we compare ourselves to EU averages,” he said. If Ireland wanted to be “smarter and greener”, it could find useful examples to follow in “small but successful” European neighbours.

Mr Cox was addressing the Oireachtas subcommittee on European Affairs chaired by Fine Gael TD Lucinda Creighton. It is considering how the Houses of the Oireachtas should implement the provisions of the Lisbon Treaty.

There was still limited awareness in Ireland of how the European Union worked, Mr Cox suggested. “When we met our European bride in 1973, we were more taken with her dowry than herself.” He recommended including EU matters in the teaching of subjects such as history, geography and statistics, and he said there was a “vast reservoir” of civil society groups in Ireland which were hugely under-utilised in terms of EU-related work.

Dr Gavin Barrett, of UCD, said the relationship between parliament and the executive in Ireland was one of the most unbalanced of all European countries. He said all Irish Ministers who participated in meetings with their European counterparts should meet the relevant Oireachtas committees on their return to Ireland to explain their actions.

Brendan Halligan, chairman of the Institute of International and European Affairs, said he agreed.