What Clare spoke about.

5 Oct

2023

EN Speech

Poor sanitary conditions, low levels of security and lack of parking places in rest areas for truck drivers (debate)

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Mr President, I think there’s no doubt about it that there is a massive shortage of truck drivers across the EU, which is having a major impact on the economy as a whole. And, as colleagues have said, one of the key reasons for this is the deterioration in working conditions, which is a significant factor on the recruitment problem that we have with new drivers – a situation fuelled by the drive f…

4 Oct

2023

EN Speech

Energy Charter Treaty: next steps (continuation of debate)

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Madam President, the Energy Charter Treaty really is a bizarre thing. It’s a type of monument to a Robin Hood in reverse, where we rob from the public to line the pockets of big corporations; an international agreement which establishes a framework for fossil fuel companies to sue sovereign states for damaging their profits in pursuing climate action. How did it get to this situation? It really is…

4 Oct

2023

EN Speech

The proposed extension of glyphosate in the EU (debate)

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Signora Presidente, glyphosate is the most widely used herbicide in the world, an active ingredient in the weed-killer ‘Roundup’. It kills all life it touches. Only the genetically-modified Roundup-resistant seed survives, and here we are authorising it again for another ten years! The boardrooms of Monsanto and Bayer must be cracking open the champagne to the sound of the death knell of nature. I…

3 Oct

2023

EN Speech

Corrupt large-scale sale of Schengen visas (debate)

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Mr President, I have to admit that today’s debate makes me deeply uncomfortable. We have an agreement in here not to try to influence the outcome of national elections by scheduling debates just before national electorates go to the polls. Yet, here we are just two weeks out from the Polish elections, having this debate. With another plenary in a fortnight just after those elections are over, coul…

3 Oct

2023

EN Speech

Statement by the President

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Madam President, I would like to make a point of order under Rule 10 of the Rules of Procedures. During yesterday’s opening session, a French ID Group MEP made false and defamatory statements about an event organised by myself and Mick Wallace and those who participated in it, thereby bringing the Parliament into disrepute. Let me be very clear: the speakers at our event, who were former detainees…

3 Oct

2023

EN Speech

European Media Freedom Act (debate)

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Madam President, later today, we will vote on whether to ban the deployment of spyware against journalists in the EU. The Media Freedom Act is the very first time the EU is going to legislate on the issue of spyware, a technology described by Edward Snowden as being like a nuclear weapon. And it is. There are no circumstances where its deployment is in line with fundamental rights. It takes over y…

2 Oct

2023

EN Speech

One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

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Madam President, Ravil Mingazov hasn’t seen his son, Yusuf, since he was a baby 22 years ago. A Russian Tatar, he fled Russia because of religious persecution, picked up in Pakistan, sold for a ransom to the US and sent to Guantanamo like so many others. He was tortured and brutalised, released after 14 years without a charge ever being made against him – released under Obama to the United Arab Em…

2 Oct

2023

EN Speech

Ensuring European transportation works for women (debate)

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Madam President, I just wanted to make a brief point about women working in the transport industry as part of this important discussion. As a former Aer Lingus employee and airport shop steward, I think it’s really important that the voices of women working in the sector are acknowledged if we are to overcome some of the systemic challenges. It’s no surprise that women continue to be under-represe…

2 Oct

2023

EN Speech

Intelligent Road Transport Systems (debate)

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Madam President, I think the directive really is essentially technical, but the discussion shouldn’t have been. I mean, in road transport, intelligent transport systems have been developing now for over 20 years. We know that some applications are very widespread and well known: journey planners, travel information systems, intelligent traffic lights, real time traffic information and management. …

2 Oct

2023

EN Speech

Economic coercion by third countries (debate)

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Madam President, we’re supposed to believe that the economic coercion is something that the bad guys do, and we need this law to defend ourselves. But, of course, everybody knows that’s a barefaced lie. We play the victim while engaging in exactly the same thing ourselves. Josep Borrell told us in March that the EU should be ‘an actor that is capable of wielding influence on what happens in the wo…

2 Oct

2023

EN Speech

Protection of workers from asbestos (debate)

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Madam President, I think it is really good that we are talking about this rather than not talking about it. But I think we have to be very clear in examining the reality. Asbestos was banned at European level almost 20 years ago, and yet it still remains present in 35 million buildings, killing, as colleagues have said, about 90 000 people in the EU every year. It’s a mini war, a major war against…

2 Oct

2023

EN Speech

Rising precariousness in Europe including the need for aid to the most deprived (debate)

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Mr President, they say that you reap what you sow. But the reality is, when Europe’s elite sow catastrophe, it’s the people who always reap it. A recent Ipsos survey revealed that a third of Europeans are currently in a precarious financial situation. That means they can’t afford things like food, travel and clothes. It means they’re living in poverty or teetering on the brink of it. Nearly half o…

14 Sep

2023

EN Speech

Parliamentarism, European citizenship and democracy (A9-0249/2023 - Alin Mituța, Niklas Nienass)

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Madam President, I too voted against this file because while there are a lot of general aspirations about making the EU more democratic, they were absolutely cancelled out by the call to get rid of consensus decision-making and to put in place a system of qualified majority voting, which is ruled by the big boys and is inherently anti-democratic. You can dress it up all you like, but nothing reall…

14 Sep

2023

EN Speech

Framework for ensuring a secure and sustainable supply of critical raw materials (A9-0260/2023 - Nicola Beer)

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Madam President, I was happy to answer the call of the civil societies organising the coalition for a global and just transition, and vote against this file because, as they say, mining is an act of war; extraction is an act of war. It always means human rights violations. It always means poisoning the air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink. Mostly the poison stays in the ground and w…

14 Sep

2023

EN Speech

Segregation and discrimination of Roma children in education (debate)

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Madam President, like everything to do with Travellers in Ireland, Traveller education just isn’t a government priority. Ireland’s last Traveller education strategy was published in 2006. That’s 17 years ago! We’ve been waiting for an updated version ever since. A review was supposed to be published six years ago and it was only started last July. Now it really is a lack of respect for Traveller r…

13 Sep

2023

EN Speech

Ambient air quality and cleaner air for Europe (A9-0233/2023 - Javi López)

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Mr President, I think it is ironic that on the day that Ursula von der Leyen delivered probably the limpest State of the Union address yet, while attempting to feign concern for the health of EU citizens and the environment, her political group exposed the con when it came to the votes. There’s a pattern now that every time we go to plenary with an important piece of environmental legislation, the…

13 Sep

2023

EN Speech

Regulation of prostitution in the EU: its cross-border implications and impact on gender equality and women’s rights (debate)

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Mr President, the criminalisation of the purchase of sex is a disastrous policy. It doesn’t eliminate demand, it simply pushes it underground. Not just Amnesty, but PICUM, ENAR, UNAIDS, the World Health Organisation, the International Labour Organisation, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health, The Lancet and sex workers themselves, they all agree: criminalisation policies harm women, th…

13 Sep

2023

EN Speech

Guatemala: the situation after the elections, the rule of law and judicial independence

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Madam President, I’m very glad to see that this week, on the 50th anniversary of the US-backed coup against Salvador Allende in Chile, that colleagues from across all sides of the House are taking very seriously the fact that there is an attempt by the extreme right to overthrow the democratic election of President-elect Bernardo Arévalo in Guatemala. Outrageous enough that it was that the indigen…

13 Sep

2023

EN Speech

SME Relief Package (debate)

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Madam President, the Commission announced plans for an SME relief package in late 2022, but it’s only now that we are beginning to see some of the details unveiled. It has taken a year to put flesh on the proposal, not to mind the fact that nothing really has been implemented. Meanwhile, business bankruptcies in the second quarter of 2023 were at the highest level in the EU since records began. Th…

12 Sep

2023

EN Speech

Sustainable aviation fuels (ReFuelEU Aviation Initiative) (debate)

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Madam President, all sectors that use fossil fuels are facing an enormous decarbonisation challenge, and time is running out. Unfortunately, this text will largely serve the industry’s greenwashing operations. Don’t get me wrong: I want the aviation sector to succeed in decarbonising. I used to work in it. I live on an island on the periphery of Europe, but the threat upon us in the last trilogue …

12 Sep

2023

EN Speech

Relations with Belarus (debate)

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Madam President, I really think it takes some neck for people to come in here and talk about repression in Belarus, feigned sympathy for Belarusians, while Lithuania, an EU Member State, flagrantly denies the human rights of Belarusian refugees. Of course, you’re happy to indulge Europe’s Juan Guaidó, Tsikhanouskaya. Meanwhile, 1 700 Belarusians are deemed to be a threat to the national security o…

12 Sep

2023

EN Speech

2022 Report on Türkiye (debate)

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Madam President, some of you call Türkiye a NATO ally and fret about their ambivalence over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But meanwhile, France, Germany, Italy and the rest sell weapons to Türkiye, including submarines, combat drones, fighter jets, even as they occupy 36% of a fellow EU Member State, even as they carry out air and artillery strikes, killing civilians in Iraq and Syria. According t…

12 Sep

2023

EN Speech

New Agenda for Latin America and the Caribbean in the aftermath of the EU-CELAC Summit (debate)

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Madam President, I had the privilege to listen to Bolivia’s President Arce and Colombia’s President Petro at the Cumbre de Los Pueblos in the Parliament in July, coinciding with the EU-CELAC summit. And they made the point that the summit was a dialogue between two very different worlds. For them, they were the governments of the people promoting participative democracy at community level and mult…

12 Sep

2023

EN Speech

Iran: one year after the murder of Jina Mahsa Amini (debate)

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Mr President, I support the self-determination of the people and the emancipation of women in Iran and everywhere else against repression, patriarchy and theocracy – something women in Ireland know a hell of a lot about, I can tell you – but I am not a fool enough to think that there will be any help for the people of Iran from a cat’s paw parliament in the lair of imperialism in Brussels or in Wa…

12 Sep

2023

EN Speech

EU-Tunisia Agreement - aspects related to external migration policy (debate)

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Mr President, I think if you wanted an example of the absolute hypocrisy, arrogance and ‘do as I say, not as I do’ attitude of the European Union, this has got to be it. Yet another grubby EU deal with yet another repressive government: a billion euro promise for Tunisia – that renowned violator of human rights – on condition that it joins Europe’s border guards. I’m sure we’re going to hear an aw…