What Mick spoke about.

23

Nov

2022

EN Speech

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A post-2020 Global biodiversity framework and the UN Convention on Biological Diversity COP15 (debate)

Mr President, at COP15 in Montreal we will hopefully come up with a global agreement to effectively protect at least 30% of global land and oceans. Some people find this a bit too much. How can we ever allow nature to thrive in 30% of the planet? Well, there’s a simple answer: it’s called de-growth. Economic growth contributes to biodiversity loss, but doesn’t necessarily contribute to our well-be…

22

Nov

2022

EN Speech

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EU response to the increasing crackdown on protests in Iran (debate)

Madam President, last week we had MEPs and members of the European External Action Service, and even some world leaders, spreading disinformation and claiming the Iranian Government had decided to impose the death penalty on nearly 15 000 protesters. When the lie was exposed, the Canadian Prime Minister deleted this tweet, but he did not issue an apology. There are peaceful protests. Many Iranians…

22

Nov

2022

EN Speech

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EU-China relations (debate)

Madam President, there’s a lack of seriousness when it comes to EU-China relations. We have real issues to address. Global warming, for example, areas that need respectful diplomacy and cooperation. The repetition of the stream of baseless accusations that originate in Washington does nothing for the EU’s standing as a respectful international partner and interlocutor. The Taiwan stuff is the most…

21

Nov

2022

EN Speech

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One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

Madam President, the UN Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights, Alena Douhan, has just published her preliminary findings on our mission to the Syrian Arab Republic. Everyone should read this document, it is both tragic and infuriating. It’s tragic to read about the plight of the working-class people of Syria. And it’s infuriating…

21

Nov

2022

EN Speech

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Borrowing strategy to finance NextGenerationEU (debate)

Madam President, NextGenerationEU is not a new post—austerity era for Europe. Seven hundred and fifty billion sounds like a lot, but it amounts to barely 5% of the EU’s total GDP. What’s more, the funds would be given largely in the form of loans, and over the course of six years resulting, according to the ECB’s own estimates, in a fiscal expansion of around 1% of GDP on average between 2021 and …

21

Nov

2022

EN Speech

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Situation of human rights in the context of the FIFA world cup in Qatar (debate)

Madam President, I’ve been involved in football all my life. I love football. The game of football thrives in spite of FIFA, not because of it. And the human rights situation in Qatar is soul destroying. And FIFA and Qatar should ensure a massive and comprehensive remediation programme for migrant workers and their families. But the EU’s hypocrisy in calling out human rights abuses in Qatar is a b…

21

Nov

2022

EN Speech

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Assessment of Hungary's compliance with the rule of law conditions under the Conditionality Regulation and state of play of the Hungarian RRP (debate)

Madam President, Hungary certainly has huge rule-of-law problems, but giving out about Hungary would carry a lot more weight if we were consistent. But sadly, the European Union could sell hypocrisy. You lecture Hungary and Poland, yet in your own Member States, police can beat protesters in the streets and fire rubber bullets at them and that’s OK. The Commission talks about withholding EUR 7.5 b…

10

Nov

2022

EN Speech

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Racial justice, non-discrimination and anti-racism in the EU (debate)

Mr President, I do not see how we can address the deeply serious topic of racism in the EU with any credibility as long as the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs publicly espouses some of the most racist sentiments uttered in public for many years. The billions of people who live where Europe has invaded and butchered millions, plundered and committed genocide, overthrown and murdered re…

20

Oct

2022

EN Speech

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Cultural solidarity with Ukraine and a joint emergency response mechanism for cultural recovery in Europe (B9-0473/2022)

Mr President, this motion talks about supporting the resilience and post-crisis recovery of the EU’s cultural ecosystem as a whole, and I was very happy to vote in favour of it. There’s been a significant increase in the Creative Europe Programme budget to 2.4 billion for the 2021—2027 period, almost double the previous amount. However, despite this increase in funding, Ireland remains in the bott…

20

Oct

2022

EN Speech

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European support to the Ukrainian research community (debate)

Mr President, I 100% support the idea of European support for Ukrainian research and innovation. It makes very good sense. We did oppose supporting Ukraine with arms, which has led to more violence, more bloodshed and at great cost to the ordinary people, the less well-off in Ukraine who are dying in their numbers. Research and innovation leads to knowledge and understanding. It always represents …

20

Oct

2022

EN Speech

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Commission implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/1614 of 15 September 2022 determining the existing deep-sea fishing areas and establishing a list of areas where vulnerable marine ecosystems are known to occur or are likely to occur (debate)

Madam President, being from Ireland, every time we hear fishing being discussed, we are reminded of the fact that the fishing community in Ireland have been treated like second—class citizens for a long time. Successive Irish governments sold out our fishermen and women a long time ago. Ireland has a great reputation at giving away our natural resources. I want to draw the Commission’s attention t…

19

Oct

2022

EN Speech

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Lukashenka regime's active role in the war against Ukraine (debate)

Madam President, our problem with Lukashenko is that he took sides in the war, just like we did, and we damned everyone that stayed neutral. The Special Advisor to the Commander of Ukraine’s army, Dan Rice, just told CNN that Russia is trying to get to the negotiating table to try to go back to the 2014 lines, but Ukraine won’t have it. Why don’t we start peace talks for a deal based on a version …

19

Oct

2022

EN Speech

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Political situation in Tunisia (debate)

Madam President, IMF, EU and World Bank-forced austerity and neoliberal reforms are ripping apart the social safety net in Tunisia, creating a long-running food and fuel crisis that has been made worse by the war in Ukraine. The IMF is currently forcing the government to reduce food subsidies in exchange for a new loan that would go to pay off previous loans. The debt servicing impacts public spen…

19

Oct

2022

EN Speech

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Presentation of the Court of Auditors' annual report 2021 (debate)

Madam President, I too would like to congratulate Tony Murphy on his appointment as President of the European Court of Auditors. Tony was appointed by his peers, he didn’t get elected by the usual in—house trading. But then I find it interesting as well that none of the Fianna Fáil has turned up here today. Tony comes from Ireland and he didn’t come through the political cartel that prevails in Ir…

18

Oct

2022

EN Speech

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The accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the Schengen area (B9-0462/2022, B9-0463/2022)

Madam President, we supported the resolution for Romania and Bulgaria to join Schengen. We see absolutely no good reason why they shouldn’t be allowed to join, and we feel that, for many years, they were discriminated against. Western Europe were very keen to get a whole number of countries into the EU in 2004. There was two main reasons for it. One of them was to get them into NATO and the other …

18

Oct

2022

EN Speech

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Guidelines for the employment policies of the Member States (A9-0243/2022 - Alicia Homs Ginel)

Madam President, precarious forms of employment dominate Europe’s labour markets, with the rise of the gig economy and zero—hour contracts. The construction sector is rampant with forms of precarious work and irregular contracts. In Ireland, there is widespread misuse of the questionable self-employment classification of workers. It helps the better—off to avoid tax, but very often leaves the less…

18

Oct

2022

EN Speech

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Recognising the Russian Federation as a state sponsor of terrorism (debate)

Madam President, when Russia drops bombs on built—up areas in Ukraine, I have no doubt that the people in Ukraine underneath the bombs are terrorised. It’s a form of terrorism. When the US and NATO bombed Afghanistan for 20 years and killed several hundred thousand and displaced millions, they were terrorizing the people. A UN survey showed that of US—NATO bombardments of civilians in Afghanistan,…

18

Oct

2022

EN Speech

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UN Climate Change Conference 2022 in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt (COP27) (debate)

Mr President, is there something special about the military sector that makes its emissions not matter? Since the reporting of military emissions is voluntary, it doesn’t happen. It only begs the question: why are we hiding the climate impact of the military industrial complex from public knowledge? Estimates put the military sector at around 6% of all global CO2 emissions – 6%. Just remember that…

18

Oct

2022

EN Speech

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Continued internal border controls in the Schengen area in light of the recent ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union (C-368/20) (debate)

Mr President, the Court of Justice finds that border controls within Schengen are incompatible with EU law. It criticises the Commission for being so slow to intervene when Member States decide to impose internal border controls. Why doesn’t the Commission hold Member States to account for breaches of the free, agreed movement of people within the Schengen area? Why does the EU give Member States …

18

Oct

2022

EN Speech

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Mental health (debate)

Mr President, access to mental health care is a human right, and it’s linked to the fact that poverty is a violation of human rights. The right to timely access to affordable, preventive and curative health care of good quality is enshrined in UN and EU conventions. Yet, in Ireland, more than 4 200 children are on the waiting list for the children and adolescent mental health service. More than 52…

18

Oct

2022

EN Speech

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Keep the bills down: social and economic consequences of the war in Ukraine and the introduction of a windfall tax (debate)

Mr President, it makes sense to tax the windfall profits of energy companies. But the rate proposed, 33%, is way too low. If the tax is calculated only on excess profits, the rate should be at least double that and in some cases 100%. This should not be a one—off tax. We need a permanent windfall tax mechanism, one that applies to all sectors. It should apply to any company that makes excess profi…

17

Oct

2022

EN Speech

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One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

Mr President, tens of thousands of people from Haiti have been protesting against the US—installed regime of Ariel Henry. Now the puppet leader is calling for foreign military intervention to crush the protests and the US have been looking for backing at the UN Security Council for the same. The last thing the people of Haiti need now is another foreign military intervention called in by a despise…

17

Oct

2022

EN Speech

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Sustainable maritime fuels (FuelEU Maritime Initiative) - Deployment of alternative fuels infrastructure (debate)

Mr President, the proposed regulation sets a number of mandatory national targets for the deployment of alternative fuels infrastructure in the EU. Alternative fuels: we talk about electricity, we talk about hydrogen, we talk about LNG. For the life of me I don’t really understand at this stage how LNG can be considered still an alternative fuel, given that the process of everything to do with it …

17

Oct

2022

EN Speech

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FRONTEX's responsibility for fundamental rights violations at EU's external borders in light of the OLAF report (debate)

Mr President, the OLAF report exposes Frontex, and it confirms what we’ve been saying for a long time. We met Amir Zahiri and Akif Rasouli in Lesvos. They fled Afghanistan, their country destroyed for 20 years by the US and NATO. They arrived in Turkey. They got a boat from Turkey to Greece. The Greek coastguard spotted them. They punctured the boat and there were a lot of people on the boat. They…

17

Oct

2022

EN Speech

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The Rule of Law in Malta, five years after the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia (debate)

Mr President, at a time when real journalists are as scarce as hen’s teeth, it’s only right that we are remembering Daphne Caruana Galizia. She had the courage to speak the truth. I heard an earlier speaker say that there is no rule of law or democracy without media freedom. But what I’d like to know is, how do you tie that in with the treatment of Julian Assange? He’s in prison in London. He’s be…