What Clare spoke about.

11 Sep

2023

EN Speech

One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

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Mr President, there are 1 million people homeless across Europe tonight, according to the Feantsa report. Millions more live in dilapidated, overcrowded accommodation. And of course – true to form – Ireland is one of the worst performers in that list. Fifteen years after the financial disaster of 2008, it’s time to start joining the dots. An entire generation has been systematically, deliberately,…

11 Sep

2023

EN Speech

Consumer credits (debate)

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Mr President, so consumer credit is basically something which allows consumers to purchase goods and services that they don’t have the money for. We’re obviously updating the directive, and I welcome the positive elements which have been referred to by colleagues such as the right to be forgotten, such as improved access to solvency. But in some ways this is just like putting a plaster on a termin…

11 Sep

2023

EN Speech

Renewable Energy Directive (debate)

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Mr President, so, this is the latest revision of the Renewable Energy Directive – the establishment of common rules and targets for the development of renewable energy across all sectors of the economy. But I think we have to start by reminding ourselves of the urgent and radical action that we need to take this decade if we are to achieve the objectives of the Paris Agreement and if Europe is to …

11 Sep

2023

EN Speech

Amendments to Parliament’s Rules of Procedure with a view to strengthening integrity, independence and accountability (debate)

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Madam President, after nine months of negotiations across multiple bodies in the wake of Qatargate, we’re finally getting to vote on the changes to the rules to reform the integrity, accountability and transparency of Parliament. And despite the fact that the text does see some improvements, and I very much welcome that, it’s not as ambitious as it should be or as people said it would be when this…

11 Sep

2023

EN Speech

Surface water and groundwater pollutants (debate)

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Madam President, the so-called Emerald Isle of Ireland is not so green or clean anymore with the dirty secret, which is that our water quality is in dire straits. And, as the EPA recently confirmed, it’s actually not getting any better. Now, the big culprit for the pollution of our rivers and lakes is, of course, the increasing nitrate concentrations, runoffs from dairy farms is ruining our ground…

11 Sep

2023

EN Speech

European Defence Industry Reinforcement through common Procurement Act (EDIRPA) (debate)

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Madam President, so here we go again. The latest in a barrage of new defence splurges, on top of the billions we’re already blowing on military research and production, we now have another 350 million on military procurement. The priorities could not be clearer. There’s never enough money for health, for housing, for education or public services. Working people have to tighten their belts. But as …

13 Jul

2023

EN Speech

State of the SME Union (RC-B9-0346/2023, B9-0346/2023, B9-0347/2023, B9-0348/2023, B9-0349/2023)

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Mr President, I am glad we were discussing this SME resolution, but I abstained on it because we are not doing enough. The level playing field is not level enough. We have big business favoured every time – companies like Iceland, where presently, in Ireland, 400 Irish workers have been left with unpaid wages, holiday pay, redundancy pay, everything. Some of them are down thousands of euros agains…

13 Jul

2023

EN Speech

The need for EU action on search and rescue in the Mediterranean (B9-0339/2023, B9-0340/2023, B9-0342/2023)

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Mr President, I also voted for this resolution. We hear an awful lot these days about the rules-based international order. Now, how European Member States deal with migration is a great example of this, because what it means is international law is flagrantly violated, UNCLOS disregarded. The Geneva Convention, maritime law, the Charter of Fundamental Rights: they’re all just bits of paper that ca…

13 Jul

2023

EN Speech

10th anniversary of the EU Guidelines on Freedom of Religion or Belief (debate)

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Mr President, I’m an Irish person so I’m a Catholic by birth, but I’m an atheist by choice. That said, I am a strong believer in support for religious freedoms – whatever that religion may be – and the right for anybody to practise and worship as they see fit, while at the same time supporting and backing the need to separate church from state. And I accept that Christians are persecuted. I have s…

12 Jul

2023

EN Speech

The political disqualifications in Venezuela

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Madam President, why is it that every irregularity in Venezuela, real or imagined, gets a debate and a resolution in here? But when the same thing actually happens in other countries, it barely registers. Two weeks ago, there was an election in Guatemala. The government had been shutting down newspapers, forcing judges into exile. Our own EU observation mission documented that opposition parties w…

12 Jul

2023

EN Speech

Recommendations for reform of the European Parliament’s rules on transparency, integrity, accountability and anti-corruption (debate)

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Madam President, it’s only seven months since the Qatargate scandal broke in Parliament. We had MEPs in jail, bags of cash seized, Brussels in uproar, everyone running around, screaming ‘enough is enough, no more messing around, we’re going to really make this place accountable this time’. Well, this was our chance to show the public that we’re serious. This report is supposed to be our main respo…

12 Jul

2023

EN Speech

Need to adopt the “Unshell” Directive on rules to prevent the misuse of shell entities for tax purposes (continuation of debate)

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Mr President, I think it is great to see this directive being discussed. Tax evasion and avoidance is a blight across Europe and, coming from Ireland as I do, that is absolutely the case where Ireland has been correctly labelled as a tax haven. But of course we are not on our own in that regard. I would like to highlight and recall the terrible plight of Michael Power from Waterford, the former Ch…

11 Jul

2023

EN Speech

European Chips Act (A9-0014/2023 - Dan Nica)

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Mr President, for all of the bravado about the vibrant European industry, the Chips Act actually is just another example of Europe’s scrambling to respond to unilateral US moves to protect its interests – something the US always does with zero care for the consequences of anybody else. And the irony, of course, is that of all of those US-dominated multilateral institutions – the WTO, the World Ban…

11 Jul

2023

EN Speech

Financial activities of the European Investment Bank – annual report 2022 - Control of the financial activities of the European Investment Bank - annual report 2022 (joint debate - European Investment Bank)

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Mr President, since the start of the war in Ukraine, the EIB has mobilised and disbursed about EUR 1.7 billion in emergency relief to Ukraine. And I think it’s appropriate that the report considers the very difficult situation that Ukraine is in now – with very limited resources to properly audit those monies – and calls instead on the EIB to do more to monitor the implementation of where that mon…

11 Jul

2023

EN Speech

Relations with the Palestinian Authority (debate)

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Madam President, on Palestine, EU politics takes place in a sort of a never-never land where things can be both true and untrue at the same time. We skirt around the details of a reality. We refuse to accurately name Zionism as practised as a European settler colonial project. Israel is an occupying power; Palestinians are a colonised people. The division of the West Bank, the checkpoints, the sep…

11 Jul

2023

EN Speech

Greening transport package (debate)

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Madam President, so we have a new package published by the Commission less than a year before the end of the mandate and we’re expected to believe that it’s finally going to be possible to transfer road traffic to rail with the resulting reduction in emissions. I mean, come on. We have to look at the 10 years up to 2021 where we’ve actually seen rail’s share of total freight transport decreasing i…

11 Jul

2023

EN Speech

2023 Annual Rule of law report (debate)

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Madam President, the Commission’s rule of law report flags the reform of the TV licence in Ireland as something that’s ongoing. Well it’s ongoing, alright, for the past decade with absolutely no results. But not anymore. As we sit here, the country is in uproar. We’re in the midst of emergency sessions of parliament against the weeks of revelations about a staggering culture of excess at our natio…

11 Jul

2023

EN Speech

COVID-19 pandemic: lessons learned and recommendations for the future (debate)

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Mr President, so what did we learn from the COVID-19 pandemic? Well, we learned that we can move mountains when we need to. We can restructure our entire economies and societies in the face of a crisis. So we know now that when we don’t do that for housing and climate change, it’s not because we can’t, it’s because we choose not to. We learned that Europe’s powers that be in a crisis will approach…

11 Jul

2023

EN Speech

Nature restoration (debate)

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Madam President, what should have been a discussion about a far more ambitious programme than what we have here if we are to save the planet and nature has turned into really one of the crassest campaigns of disinformation by opportunist politicians and a media completely incapable of holding them to account. Members on all sides have been using it to play to their own audience, and I have to say …

10 Jul

2023

EN Speech

European Citizens’ Initiative ‘Save Cruelty Free Cosmetics – Commit to a Europe without animal testing’ (debate)

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Madam President, I know we heard from the Commissioner that the Commission is listening. But if you are, I wonder, are you really hearing? Because we know that the Commission and the European Chemicals Agency are still standing over animal testing under the REACH Regulation for chemicals used exclusively in cosmetics, for which there is a possibility of workforce exposure or a risk to the environm…

10 Jul

2023

EN Speech

Protection of journalists and human rights defenders from manifestly unfounded or abusive court proceedings (debate)

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Mr President, I think it is really appropriate that we are talking about the protection of journalists from abuse of court proceedings. But I think we have to be honest about it that it doesn’t really get much more abusive than depriving somebody of their liberty. In that sense, I think it was very appropriate for people to refer to journalists like Julian Assange, seven years in the Ecuadorian em…

10 Jul

2023

EN Speech

Industrial Emissions Directive - Industrial Emissions Portal - Deployment of alternative fuels infrastructure - Sustainable maritime fuels (FuelEU Maritime Initiative) - Energy efficiency (recast) (joint debate - Fit for 55 and Industrial Emissions)

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Madam President, the Industrial Emissions Directive is obviously aiming to overhaul the management of emissions from over 50 000 areas, including steelworks, chemical and plastics, coal factories and, of course, industrial farms. This is important to tackle greenhouse gas emissions from the point of view of the impact on the environment, but not just that, also the impact on human health. Every ye…

15 Jun

2023

EN Speech

Sustainable reconstruction and integration of Ukraine into the Euro-Atlantic community (RC-B9-0270/2023, B9-0270/2023, B9-0274/2023, B9-0275/2023, B9-0277/2023, B9-0278/2023, B9-0281/2023)

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Mr President, of course I believe that the European Union must contribute to Ukraine’s reconstruction, but I had to vote against this resolution because practically every single thing in it about Ukraine and European security is wrong. It trumpets the 2008 Bucharest decision that Ukraine will join NATO, a decision which was warned could lead to a war, which it has. It pushes to integrate Ukraine i…

15 Jun

2023

EN Speech

Investigation of the use of Pegasus and equivalent surveillance spyware (Recommendation) (B9-0664/2022, B9-0260/2023)

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Mr President, this was a very good report. It pointed out and was clear that Pegasus hacking and spyware is an attack on democracy and human rights. It’s sensitive to the power imbalance between those carrying out surveillance and those under it. It denounces stockpiling of zero day exploits. It does not spare EU Member States. It calls out Ireland for playing host to the cyber arms trade. And it …

15 Jun

2023

EN Speech

Call for a European strategy to counter hostage diplomacy (debate)

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Madam President, Bernard Phelan, an Irish citizen, was released from Iran in the last weeks, and that is very much to be welcomed. It was, of course, a product of diplomacy by Irish state services, but also by Iranian diplomats. And diplomacy by national Member States is the way in which we deal with this. To listen to some colleagues, you would think they want to ape the American model, which is:…