What Clare spoke about.

11

Mar

2024

EN Speech

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Amending the Directive on alternative dispute resolution for consumer disputes (short presentation)

Mr President, I have to say, I really welcome this report because I firmly believe that alternative dispute resolution processes should be used as widely as possible, whether it’s consumer law or family law. Things like mediation get results that are at least as good, if not actually better than anything that would come out of a court process. And given the huge issues facing, for example, Ireland…

11

Mar

2024

EN Speech

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Definition of criminal offences and penalties for the violation of Union restrictive measures (debate)

Mr President, EU sanctions: when they are not backfiring against ordinary Europeans, they are firing on all cylinders against ordinary people in the Global South. By overwhelming majorities, the United Nations General Assembly and the UN Human Rights Council have over the years again and again and again and again, condemned the kinds of unilateral sanctions that the EU and US apply against poorer …

11

Mar

2024

EN Speech

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Energy performance of buildings (recast) (debate)

Mr President, I’m very disappointed that despite the rapporteur’s best intentions and efforts to keep this file ambitious, his work was undercut by his Irish Government colleagues’ Group, the EPP. This was a chance to do many things at once: to use climate money effectively, while also addressing social inequality. But with Member States marking their own homework, and given that the Council had a…

29

Feb

2024

EN Speech

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The need for unwavering EU support for Ukraine, after two years of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine (RC-B9-0143/2024)

Mr President, we are in the second anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine – hundreds of thousands dead, millions displaced and Ukraine lost as an independent state. Yet the only solution that people in here can come up with is to continue the failed policies that you’ve been implementing for the last two years. So I voted against this resolution. I voted against it because only 93 people i…

29

Feb

2024

EN Speech

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Data collection and sharing relating to short-term accommodation rental services (A9-0270/2023 - Kim Van Sparrentak)

Mr President, as the housing crisis rages across Europe and homelessness rises to historic levels, the impact of short-term rentals in our European cities is part of the problem. Now, it is not the main one but, nonetheless, I did vote for this file because we know that the short-term rental market accounts for around a quarter of all tourist accommodation in the EU, but how many residential units…

29

Feb

2024

EN Speech

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Major interpellations (debate)

Mr President, for months now in Ireland, the media and the politicians have been obsessed with talk of immigration: we have to have an ‘honest’ conversation about migration, they tell us we have no choice in the matter at all. Funny enough now though, they’re very good at ignoring things when they want to. For example, if you’re demanding a right to housing or healthcare or disability rights, well…

29

Feb

2024

EN Speech

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Commission recommendation on secure and resilient submarine cables (debate)

Mr President, much of the submarine cables that we’re so desperate to secure are not actually public infrastructure, but are private property owned by multinational consortia whose beneficial owners are mostly unknown, registered in tax havens or – like Google – have more than enough money anyway to fix a problem if something happens. And something happens regularly: 25% of cables are ruptured eve…

28

Feb

2024

EN Speech

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Financial activities of the European Investment Bank - annual report 2023 (debate)

Mr President, the European Investment Bank has approved loans of EUR 650 million for Israeli infrastructure since the launch of its latest genocidal attack in Gaza. To give you an idea of the scale of what that represents, it’s the equivalent of 90 % of the EIB’s total investment in Palestine since its first loan in 1995. From 1995 to date, it’s invested more than EUR 2 billion in Israel, compared…

28

Feb

2024

EN Speech

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The murder of Alexei Navalny and the need for EU action in support of political prisoners and oppressed civil society in Russia (debate)

Mr President, the rights of all people must be respected. As I’ve said many times before, Alexei Navalny should not have been in prison. His death in detention is appalling and an impartial investigation into the circumstances absolutely necessary. But while respecting the dead, we also have to be accurate in our memories. Was he Russia’s democratic messiah? I don’t believe so. A courageous activi…

27

Feb

2024

EN Speech

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Rising inequalities in the world (debate)

Mr President, I think it’s slightly ironic that we’re having this discussion today, just over a week out from a referendum in Ireland that’s supposed to address inequality and discrimination, but that will actually just entrench both of them. The plan is to remove a discriminatory clause in our Constitution about women in the home to make women constitutional equals, but unfortunately it just repl…

27

Feb

2024

EN Speech

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The current situation in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (debate)

Mr President, a humanitarian disaster is underway in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with the worsening security situation and a military build-up all away from the media spotlight – it’s barbarism. How many tragedies do we need to ignore? The International Committee of the Red Cross says the DRC has one of the highest numbers of forcibly displaced people in the world. The UN says that the DRC s…

27

Feb

2024

EN Speech

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Critical situation in Cuba (debate)

Madam President, of course, the situation in Cuba is critical. The economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed on Cuba by the United State for over 60 years violates the rights of all Cubans. An estimated 500 000 people emigrated in 2022 and 2023. The important tourism sector hasn’t recovered. The serious shortage of fuel has disturbed the distribution of food and caused hunger. The energy…

27

Feb

2024

EN Speech

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Recommendation to the Council, the Commission and the EEAS on the situation in Syria (debate)

Madam President, Syria, ‘the land of a forgotten conflict’, says the explanatory statement on this report. And the report itself is certainly more than a little bit forgetful about how the dire situation as accurately described in Syria has come about. No mention of Israel, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf, the West, sudden onset selective amnesia. It’s as if we had nothing to do with this war. It just happ…

27

Feb

2024

EN Speech

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Human rights and democracy in the world and the European Union’s policy on the matter – annual report 2023 (debate)

Mr President, human rights are universal. That means everyone enjoys them equally. But the EU doesn’t believe in that anymore. In 2020, Ursula von der Leyen announced the EU’s new geopolitical agenda on human rights and democracy. These days, the EU is all about the rules-based international order, all about geopolitics. So when the European Council President Charles Michel congratulated vicious, …

27

Feb

2024

EN Speech

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War in the Gaza Strip and the need to reach a ceasefire, including recent developments in the region (debate)

Madam President, on 26 January, the International Court of Justice ruled that there’s a plausible risk of genocide in Gaza. It ordered Israel to stop killing civilians. Israel continued. The legal obligations on EU Member States are very clear. The genocide conventions require states to avoid complicity, the EU common position on arms exports bans exporting arms where there’s a clear risk they’ll …

26

Feb

2024

EN Speech

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One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

Mr President, last week, people from across Dublin gathered on Sandymount beach to fly flags, kites and read this poem from Refaat Alareer, Palestinian writer and teacher: ‘If I must die / you must live / to tell my story / to sell my things / to buy a piece of cloth / and some strings, / (make it white with a long tail) / so that a child, somewhere in Gaza / while looking heaven in the eye / awai…

26

Feb

2024

EN Speech

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Amending Decision (EU) 2017/1324: continuation of the Union’s participation in PRIMA under Horizon Europe (short presentation)

Mr President, PRIMA is a Horizon Europe project to sustainably manage water and agri-food systems in the Mediterranean basin. So could we please acknowledge the grotesque irony of Israel being one of its 19 partner countries, when Israel famously, notoriously and systematically deprives Palestinians of water rights and their farmland? It has deliberately subjected Palestinians to chronic water sho…

26

Feb

2024

EN Speech

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Tackling the inflation in food prices and its social consequences and root causes (debate)

Mr President, a Barnardo’s study last year found that 10 % of families in Ireland are now using food banks. A third of parents either skip meals or eat less in order to feed their children, and families with children have costing them 22 % more to put food on the table last year than it was the year before. We know across Europe and Britain, 5.7 million people were pushed into food insecurity. Sho…

26

Feb

2024

EN Speech

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Need to overcome the Council deadlock on the platform workers directive (debate)

Mr President, the Council’s blocking minority on the Platform Work Directive truly is an utter disgrace, indicating corporate capture. As far as I’m concerned, we need an ethics investigation into Uber and Deliveroo and who benefited from the change in policy because, despite two agreements in trilogues – the second of which was largely watered down as a result of the influence of France, Germany,…

8

Feb

2024

EN Speech

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Further repression against the democratic forces in Venezuela: attacks on presidential candidate Maria Corina Machado (RC-B9-0097/2024)

Mr President, I voted against this file because the situation in Venezuela is very volatile and the EU should stop the situation from escalating rather than engaging in geopolitical games. I mean, let’s remember, Venezuela’s GDP has shrunk 80 % in ten years, forcing 7 million people to flee that country. It’s a disaster humanly, economically and societally. And former US Secretary of State Pompeo …

8

Feb

2024

EN Speech

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Association agreements for the participation of third countries in Union programmes (B9-0096/2024)

Mr President, this oral question calls for the Commission to legislate to allow democratic scrutiny by the Parliament of the implementation of association agreements like Horizon Europe and I think the timing could not be better. Why, for example, is Israel part of Horizon Europe? Why does Israel get 22.73 % of grants under that programme? Why did European taxpayers’ money go to fund them in the d…

8

Feb

2024

EN Speech

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The EU priorities for the 68th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (B9-0091/2024)

Mr President, I voted for this file because when the EU delegation goes to the UN Commission on the Status of Women in March, I want them to raise a few priorities. Priorities like war and its effect on women. How about the women in Gaza, where women and children make up 70 % of its victims. No doctor, no midwife, no nurse to support women during labour, no pain medication, no anaesthesia. Women h…

7

Feb

2024

EN Speech

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Increased number of executions in Iran, in particular the case of Mohammad Ghobadlou

Mr President, like everybody else here, I think the death penalty is an abomination wherever it’s used – in Iran, in Saudi Arabia, in Alabama. I unreservedly oppose the boom of executions in Iran. The only acceptable number of executions anywhere is zero. Full stop! And in any other context, that would be all there would have to be to say on this subject. But we’re in the European Parliament, wher…

7

Feb

2024

EN Speech

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New wave of mass arrests in Belarus of opposition activists and their family members

Madam President, there is no doubt about it, there are considerable problems with the prison conditions in Belarus: widespread allegations of poor treatment, failure to access medicine, sufficient food and family visits, and widespread arbitrary arrest on tenuous grounds, often for being foreign agents. We ourselves have made repeated requests to go and see the labour and workers’ leaders Henadz F…

7

Feb

2024

EN Speech

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Automated data exchange for police cooperation (“Prüm II”) (debate)

Mr President, we had a problem with this proposal from the very start, and I suppose the trilogue hasn’t really improved it much for us. We were asked to massively expand the EU machinery for sharing biometric data, with no evidence that this would do anything to make crime investigation more effective or more successful. We were just asked to trust the Commission that that would happen. Well, no …