What Lynn spoke about.

At this stage the Commission has stretched the word “simplification” so far it has lost all meaning. Nothing in this proposal will simplify life for ordinary people. It will make life easier for Big Tech to exploit extensive loopholes. This Digital Omnibus is not simplification; it is deregulation and corporate capture dressed as reform. Europe’s data-protection and AI safeguards are being weakene

A Uachtaráin, yes, Europe and Canada must co-operate on the global challenges facing us. We absolutely should work together on climate action, multilateralism and building a fair trading partnership. However, we must unequivocally reject investor courts, be they in CETA, the EU‑Chile or EU‑Mexico agreements. Investor courts represent a direct corporate attack on the sovereignty of states and under

A Uachtaráin, as we prepare for COP31, the world is still reeling from months of natural disasters. We are processing the news that we will overshoot our 1.5‑degree goal, and the illegal US-Israel war against Iran highlights the risks of our fossil‑fuel dependence. These dire realities mean that world leaders must come to COP31 ready for change. The European Parliament is calling for the EU to lea

A Uachtaráin, sufficient, safe, structural: this is what our Circular Economy Act needs to be. Sufficient – because focusing on resource efficiency while consumption skyrockets won't cut it. We need to reduce our demand and make hard choices about what we prioritise in our production and consumption. Do we prioritise the critical materials for the green transition or squander them on weapons syste

Thank you for taking the blue card. My question is: do you agree that by failing to activate the Blocking Statute, the European Union is itself complicit in the attacks on the International Criminal Court? Trump and Rubio are obviously doing the dirty work of Benjamin Netanyahu by attacking the ICC, but the EU is also their accomplice by failing to defend one of the most fundamental institutions o

Mr President, as a direct result of President Trump's idiotic and illegal war in Iran, anxiety is growing in many homes as we head into the winter. Will it be another year of choosing between heating and eating? Households are at their limit, yet fossil fuel companies are raking it in: billions of windfall profits, cashing in on the crisis. There is a way to shift the balance back: tax these super

A Uachtaráin, I welcome the initiative from INTA Chair Bernd Lange to examine the issue of transparency with these so-called mini deals. New bilateral agreements such as CTIPs and SIFAs instead seem to prioritise the needs of European investors and the demand for African countries' natural resources. We are seeing a new scramble for Africa, and we only need look to the Democratic Republic of Congo

Mr President, European policy has led to the death of people. Israel's occupation of Lebanon is on the rise. Genocide in Gaza is still ongoing. The door is open in front of our eyes. The Israeli government is clear about its objectives. He is trying to ethnically clean Gaza and the West Bank. He wants a state of his own to deny the Palestinian people. He wants to take over Lebanon. This is done wi

Madam Chair, this law says it all about the EU's obsession with militarisation. It calls the war on Ukraine a possibility to test weapons in a 'live experience of modern warfare'. European citizens are deeply supportive of Ukraine, but they expect the EU to be working towards a just and lasting peace. Instead, we are letting the defence industry make Ukraine their testing ground and paying them to

Madam President, the trial of the Ulm Five in Germany is an attack on civil liberties and the rule of law in Europe. Daniel Tatlow-Devally, Crow Tricks, Zo Hailu, Leandra Rollo and Vi Kovarbasic have now been in prison for over a year without a verdict. Not content with their complicity in Israel's genocide in Gaza, the German Government are oppressing European citizens who refuse to stand by as G

President, colleagues, Commissioner, as the Left shadow for CBAM and TDF and as the rapporteur for the INTA opinion, I would like to take the opportunity to thank both the rapporteurs for their commitment. I think we have a strong agreement on key points, where we expand the CBAM without undermining it, and we also bring more global justice to the CBAM. We believe in this policy, but we need other

A Uachtaráin, the people of Gaza have now suffered more than 1 000 days of genocide, 1 000 days of mass murder, starvation and an international community that's too cowardly to hold Israel accountable. The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestine Territory has found that Israel continues to commit genocide and deliberately targets Palestinian children in Gaza an

Mr President, Mr President, the Irish Presidency of the Council is an opportunity to be a voice for peace. Voice for human rights and international law. time to promote our values. Unfortunately, though, the Irish Government's approach continues to be: 'We will be principled, but only when it costs us nothing'. Ireland is a country with a proud record on peacebuilding, disarmament and internationa

Absolutely, our culture is our language, is our life – as we say in Ireland. We absolutely all need to protect the right for people to speak our language – for the Galicians, the Basques, the Catalans and, likewise, for the Irish. In the committees we need to have full derogation of the Irish language.

My point was that all the people of Europe – our Dublin as an example – need to invest in its culture because culture is so important. I thought somebody on the right would understand how important it is to protect our culture and to invest EU funding in cultural spaces for everybody who lives in our countries.

A Uachtaráin, the electrification plan action will provide a crucial boost for electrification based on renewables across the EU, and electrification will, of course, not only reduce emissions, but also energy bills by reducing our reliance on volatile fossil fuels. Of course, we should be electrifying end users where possible, but, at the same time, we need policy coherence so as not to create ba

A Uachtaráin, yesterday EUobserver reported that as far back as 2017 the Commission's then top lawyer was very clear that the EU was legally entitled to suspend cooperation with Israel, such as Horizon Europe and Erasmus exchanges, due to Israel's violations of international law. Almost 10 years and the EU has refused to act! We have witnessed a genocide in Gaza, the annexation of the West Bank, e

Madam President, tackling poverty is the key to healthy, thriving communities, to safe communities, to social cohesion. But failure to combat poverty pits marginalised groups against each other. It prevents children from fulfilling their potential. That means lifelong consequences for them. Fighting poverty requires the same urgency that this Commission applies to its militarisation agenda. 320 00

A Uachtaráin, I'd like to thank the rapporteur for his constructive work on this report. But that said, I still think that we are not fully reflecting the significant challenges that AI present for workers, for our economies, and for our very society. Specifically on trade policy, I think there are significant concerns about how data flows and digital trade agreements will undermine our data prote

A Uachtaráin, the United Nations was founded to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war. It was not born out of a naive idealism, but out of the horrors of the Second World War and a realisation by the survivors that humanity's best possible hope was cooperation and multilateralism. And as the United States and Israel plunged the world into instability and attacked the UN, we need coun

Mr President, in July, the Irish Government will take over the EU presidency. This should be an occasion for the Irish Government to lead on international law, defend Irish neutrality, lead on a united Ireland and tackle the cost of energy. Instead, it looks like the legacy of the Irish Presidency will be the closure of a business and the unemployment of workers. The Silk Road Café is a much-loved

Mr President, colleagues, there is now no doubt that Israel and the United States represent the greatest threat to global security and are a risk to social cohesion right across Europe. They have caused the worst oil and gas crisis in history, and for the cost of living in the EU to skyrocket. Israel and the United States are carrying out illegal wars, bombing school children, hunting and killing

Mr President, a chairde, as we debate this report, civil liberties in Europe are clearly under attack. Many Member States are attacking the right to protest and the right to express solidarity with the Palestinian people. We have seen artists censored for expressing solidarity. We have seen ordinary citizens beaten off the streets for protesting Israel's genocide in Gaza. We have seen the weaponis

Well, I do come from a working-class background in Tallaght in south-west Dublin and, unfortunately, you're right that it is in working-class areas that we see a lot more nitrous oxide canisters. I think we need to also invest. So while we need to restrict the nitrous oxide sales, we also need to invest in our working-class communities. We need to invest in providing community services for young p