Speeches

Madam President, (start of speech off mic) ... the speed, ease and availability of instant payments on apps like Revolut and Monzo have been welcome, but the legislative proposal does not include any considerations regarding the prospective energy consumption and possibilities to ensure energy efficiency if the use of instant payments is increased. While instant payments can enhance financial inclusion, ensuring that vulnerable populations have access to these systems without compromising their security or privacy remains a concern. I am also worried that increasing the uptake of IPs will also most likely reduce the will to maintain the ever—decreasing funding of infrastructure for cash payments. Cash is still the most inclusive means of payment. There are no hidden charges when paying with cash and it provides the highest degree of independence and protection available from the private banking sector. Cash is still king, and I hope it stays that way.

Madam President, this motion calls on Hungary to behave better and condemns the reported systematic discriminatory practices against academia, journalists, political parties and civil society. It’s a pity the EU doesn’t apply the same standards to all equally. Ukraine is a country where corruption is manifest on an unprecedented scale, but which has its membership to the EU fast tracked. In 2021, the European Court of Auditors issued a report entitled ‘Reducing Grand Corruption in Ukraine’. The title speaks for itself. The report found that corruption in Ukraine is based on informal connections between government officials, members of parliament, prosecutors, judges, law enforcement agencies, managers of state-owned enterprises, and politically-connected individuals and companies. We talk about academia problems and journalistic problems with Hungary’s behaviour, but what about Julian Assange? How come the EU doesn’t give a damn about Julian Assange? There’s people working in academia in Europe losing their jobs because they’re not supporting the genocide in Gaza. The lack of consistency in the EU is soul destroying.

Madam President, I voted against this resolution on Gaza. It calls for a ceasefire, but the Parliament has voted to make it conditional on the dismantling of Hamas, the same pretext Netanyahu has for his genocide. In spirit, the resolution stands with Israel. It’s a document whitewashing and justifying murder and oppression. The racism of the EU runs deep but is bared for all to see here. The resolution minimises the genocidal actions and overt genocidal intent of the Israeli regime and demonises those resisting at every turn. Even those alleged to be aiding the Palestinian resistance are to be sanctioned. Yet the endless ships and planes loaded, and loads of military equipment being funnelled into the genocide by the United States, the UK and Germany don’t get a mention. Netanyahu, the Butcher of Gaza, said on Saturday that no one can stop the assault on Gaza. Not The Hague or anyone else. Almost 30 000 dead, 10 000 of them children; 1.9 million displaced, 1.8 million food insecure; starving children are dying from hypothermia; newborn babies with malnourished mothers are only surviving a few days, and the EU is is OK with this? What has become of us?

Madam President, the current inflation crisis, much of it self-inflicted by the Ukraine war and the sanctions that we introduced that are hurting us more than Russia, has battered European purchasing power, a crushing burden on the shoulders of working people. Single-parent households are particularly affected, 85% of which are led by single mothers. This winter, across Europe, many of them are facing the horrific, impossible choice between heating their homes and feeding their families, too often having to deprive themselves to ensure their children have everything they need. Gender and poverty are intersecting variables. Working women in the EU earn on average 13 % less per hour than men. They are also more likely to be precariously implied, and to have to reduce their hours and earnings to fulfil unpaid caring responsibilities. For women, poverty can mean being trapped in a violent household, having no access to reproductive healthcare or falling victim to human trafficking. While oil and gas lobbyists enjoy premium access to European decision-making, putting fossil fuel industry profits above the interest of millions, more and more Europeans, especially women, are slipping below poverty lines. The EU is failing its people.

Madam President, audits carried out in Argentina and Uruguay highlight once again the major issues with animal welfare, traceability and food safety for these countries. Poorly treated horses are commonly given drugs that are prohibited in the EU, and the traceability systems in place are unreliable, as they rely on the honesty of horse owners and dealers, leaving it wide open for fraud. As a result, horses of unknown origin and an unclear drug history, as well as stolen and smuggled horses, enter the food chain, which poses a high food-safety risk for European consumers. The farm to fork strategy, passed overwhelmingly in here in 2021, called on the Commission to suspend the import of horsemeat from countries where applicable EU requirements relating to traceability and animal welfare are not complied with. It’s about time the Commission took note.

Mr President, the EU already has a comprehensive body of policy and legislation aimed at protecting the marine environment, but these are not being implemented. This was confirmed by the European Court of Auditors in 2020. Ireland, for example, has utterly failed to meet the EU’s obligation to achieve good environmental status for biodiversity, commercial fish and shellfish and seafloor integrity. Only 18% of Ireland’s commercially exploited fish populations have achieved good environmental status. The environmental status of 60% of these commercial fish populations is unknown, and the environmental status of 41% of non-commercial fish species is also unknown. If we don’t conserve fishing resources and protect our marine ecosystems, there will be no fish to catch, and we do need to work with the stakeholders and have regional solutions.

Mr President, Commissioner, the common fisheries policy needs to be urgently amended to address the hugely disproportionate impact of Brexit on the Irish fishing industry. Ireland needs to see some genuine burden-sharing, whereby all coastal Member States share the pain of Brexit equally and proportionately. Ireland got an increase in its mackerel quota last month worth about EUR 3 million. But put it in context: the Irish mackerel sector is the most valuable sector for the Irish fleet, but it was hit hardest by the Brexit deal, with a 26% cut in Ireland’s quota share, which was worth over 28 million to Irish fishing. Commissioner, you spoke of equal treatment. Well, Irish fishermen and women need to get a fair share of fishing rights to the fish that spawn and breed in Irish waters. The CFP allows foreign boats to catch up to 85% of the fish in Irish waters, yet Irish ports get no reciprocal access to the waters of other Member States. The CFP shafted Irish fishermen and women from the very start.

Madam President, this report starts by claiming the EU is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy and equality, the rule of law and human rights, and that these values should be shared and upheld and actively promoted by the EU and the Member States in their internal and external actions. And then you think of the ethnic cleansing in Gaza. The murder of 10 000 children in Gaza by the genocidal Israeli regime in just 100 days. The EU Council has not even called for a ceasefire. The Germans are not only defending the Israelis from the charge of genocide at the International Court of Justice, they have boosted our arms sales to Israel tenfold. You cannot carry on talking absolute nonsense about EU values while you are drenched in the blood of Palestinian children. The behaviour of EU Member States since October 7 is utterly incompatible with the notion of humanity, let alone respect for human rights.

Madam President, the Minister for Justice in Ireland published a hate crime bill in 2022. If this was already law, the Irish Prime Minister, our Taoiseach, could well be facing a charge of grossly trivialising or denying genocide. In relation to South Africa’s case against Israel, the Irish leader said genocide is defined as the deliberate attempt to destroy an entire nation or entire race, or to do so in large part. At no point does the Genocide Convention use the phrase ‘in large part’. The Convention says ‘in whole or in part’ – ‘in large part’ suggests it is necessary to intend to destroy a sizeable majority of a group for the threshold of genocide to be reached. The Taoiseach also asked if the Hamas attack on 7 October was not also a genocide. He questioned the indisputable fact that Israel is committing genocide, while offering as an alternative an utterly bizarre example for which there is no case before any international court. The Irish leader has undermined the scope of the Genocide Convention and trivialised Israeli genocide. He does not speak for the people of Ireland.

Madam President, many people who have no connection to the farming community think that all farmers have a lot of money, and the truth is that some farmers do have a lot of money, but a whole lot of farmers don’t. Now, the CAP system has certainly got a fair bit to do with it, and there’s a couple of sides to that. People resent the fact that farmers get cheques and get subsidised. Well, the reason being is that the EU insists on importing food from countries where people work for USD 5 a day, so we import cheaply, and in order to make that work, we have to subsidise the farmer at home. It probably make more sense if we actually paid the farmers properly for their produce, and maybe the people in the Global South might get a fair price elsewhere. But a big problem as well is that, of the CAP money, 80 % of it is still going to the 20 % richest farmers, who actually don’t need any help at all. And that’s why in a country like Ireland, we are losing a family farm every day as a result of EU policies and Irish Government policies, who have protected big agri but have not protected 80 % of the farmers who are struggling. We are helping the wrong farmers. Ye are giving the money to the people who already have it, and you’re not giving it to the farmers that need it.

Mr President, Norway has somehow been successful in promoting itself as a global leader of sustainability, despite a quarter of its economic activity being generated by the export of fossil fuels. But they can’t start a global deep-sea mining race in the name of sustainability. Deep-sea mining would wreak havoc, with corporations dredging, digging and scraping the ocean floor, creating sediment plumes and dumping waste material, all away from the controlling eyes of the public. It would interfere with the ocean’s ability to capture carbon and would kill off species we haven’t even discovered yet. We do need certain materials for the green transition, but that does not mean we should destroy ecosystems with flimsy resource-scarcity arguments that don’t make sense and are against our international commitments. We have to stop a new environmental catastrophe before it begins, or Norway’s name will go down in history as being the country that kicked off the destruction of the deep sea. And it is important to remember that if we do the same in the Global South, be it Africa, Asia or Latin America, we are guilty of the very same thing.

Madam President, this report claims the EU can play a positive role in preventive diplomacy in tackling frozen conflicts around the world. The past two decades are a dramatic demonstration of how the EU does precisely the opposite: Kosovo, Syria, Nagorno-Karabakh, Ukraine, Israel, Palestine. Just look at the genocide taking place at the moment in Gaza. We haven’t time to go back over all the colonial exploits of European powers and the imperialists, carving up large parts of the world with complete disregard for the ethnic and religious communities on the ground. But European colonialists did lay the ground for the Israeli settler colonial project, and then supported the apartheid state of Israel for over 75 years, while they systematically brutalised and butchered the Palestinians. When the Israeli genocide of Gaza began on 7 October, the EU ran out to their defence. Presidents von der Leyen and Metsola literally flew out there and pledged EU support, no matter what was to come. You say the EU can limit the spread of conflicts. The Council still hasn’t called for a ceasefire. Sadly, the EU is part of the problem.

Madam President, it would seem that the great hopes for India as Washington’s counterweight to China, have been shelved for the moment. India refused to get on board with the Russian sanctions, and the two countries are busy strengthening defence cooperation and trade relations, while it seems the US and China have made some steps towards de-escalation in their trade war. If this was a less significant country, the report would not be tiptoeing around the Russian relations issue, but heaping condemnations and threats. Instead, the report talks about India as one of our most important trade partners – a like-minded democracy that will partner with us to tackle democratic backsliding worldwide. These comments could be taken seriously if Modi’s tenure wasn’t marked by constant harassment and intimidation of political opposition, and crackdowns on free speech and independent media. And the timid comments on the persecution of religious minorities could be taken seriously if the majority of EU leaders didn’t spend the past three months facilitating the genocide of Muslims in Gaza by the Israeli terrorist.

Madam President, 100 days of international inaction. 100 days of double standards. 100 days of Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians. Over 24 000 innocent civilians dead, over 10 000 of them children, many thousands still under the rubble – and youse are wondering if this is a genocide? Almost 2 million displaced and still being bombed. Hospitals, churches, mosques, bakeries, apartments bombed – and you’re still wondering if this is a genocide? Not one EU country stood by South Africa. Germany is said to have committed the first genocide of the 20th century in Namibia. Namibia’s president has denounced Berlin’s shocking decision to reject South Africa’s indictment. What’s happened to Germany? I’ve admired Germany most of my life. Now they’ve lost the plot. They’ve been the cheerleaders for fuelling the war in Ukraine, at great cost to their own economy. Now they’re the cheerleaders of the settler colonial Zionist project, and supporting a genocide. Has Germany learnt nothing from its own history?!

Mr President, not all NGOs are perfect. Far from it. Some so-called human rights NGOs are, in fact, often guilty of instrumentalising human rights in the service of Western interests and imperialism. There are also lots of great NGOs who do amazing work, like Irish Wildlife Trust, Birdwatch Ireland, Carbon Market Watch. They have integrity and expertise and are constructive. We should be looking at institutional and structural failings within the European Parliament, not tarring all NGOs with the same brush. Many in this Parliament, especially the EPP, would be more than happy with the eradication of NGOs and civil society groups in order to clear an unimpeded path for big business. The corporate sector has a far greater lobby footprint in the EU than NGOs and civil society. It looks to me that some MEPs want to protect and promote the interests of big business, rather than those of the ordinary people.

Mr President, climate neutrality claims based on offsetting are a massive contributor to climate mitigation deterrence. Climate claims for products based on carbon offsetting will now, based on Parliament’s work, be added to the list of unfair commercial practices. This ban is limited to products, it doesn’t cover company-wide claims, but it is still significant. These changes are also currently impacting the ongoing negotiations for the Green Claims Directive and the carbon removal certification framework. The Empowering Consumers Directive is now an important backstop for future anti-greenwashing policy. There claims to be a newfound appetite to tackle offsetting – if not in the Commission, then certainly in Parliament and arguably also in the Council. We need to build on this and take the next logical step, which is to contest ‘climate neutrality’ and ‘net zero’ as climate concepts and as the basis for EU climate policy. Establishing a separate EU carbon removal target is key to this.

Mr President, this is a war that could have been prevented, a war that could have been stopped as early as April 2022. But we didn’t want peace. We wanted war. We wanted to promote a US-NATO proxy war in the effort to damage Russia. We spent billions of EU taxpayers’ money fuelling a war that wasn’t in our interest, and has helped to destroy Ukraine for no good reason. Ukraine wants to recruit a half a million more soldiers for the war. Over 17 000 have been caught and detained by security services while attempting to avoid the draft. Many more have escaped. Zelenskyy wants to lower the draft days from 27 to 25, as the average age of soldiers breaches 40. There are interviews in the US media where seasoned soldiers say that due to age, alcoholism or illness, less than half the new recruits have any ability or the will to fight. Yuriy Lutsenko, a former prosecutor general and the ex-head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, recently called for the government to tell the truth about the casualty numbers. He said Ukraine was currently losing 30 000 soldiers a month, and that half a million have been killed or seriously wounded since the beginning of the invasion. The Spiegel reported last week that Germany doesn’t even know where its arms are going once they’ve reached Ukraine. You want to keep military assistance commitments to Ukraine when you know it’s an unmitigated disaster and a bloodbath that you are fuelling. Are you ever going to try and end this slaughter, or do you give a damn about working class Ukrainians that have been thrown into a meat grinder? Cop onto yourselves.

Mr President, the EU public procurement directives allow contracting authorities to promote social inclusion, the protection of the environment, and look to ensure the compliance of tender awards with social, labour and environmental legislation. However, even with these directives incorporated into law in the various Member States, a public procurement process can result in disaster. In 2019, in the Irish Parliament, I highlighted several problems with the procurement process for the National Children’s Hospital. I showed how the costs were going to escalate off the Richter scale. The hospital wouldn’t be built for 2.2 billion when it should have cost about half that, and that’s what’s happening. The government could have revisited the contract, but it refused for political reasons, at great cost to the Irish people, I might say. The big contractor has robbed the people blind and it is just down to the incompetence of the politicians involved.

Madam President, the persistence of complex labour market schemes involving undeclared work, abusive subcontracting, intermediaries and shell companies have had a severe impact on European workers, but none more so than on migrant workers. The European Labour Authority has done well so far to combat this through its cross-border actions, but it can do more if given the support of a stronger mandate. To do so, we need to extend the European Labour Authority’s scope to include the directives such as the Seasonal Workers Directive, Employers Sanctions Directive and the Anti-Trafficking Directive. We also need to see stronger cooperation between the European Labour Authority and its social partners, such as trade unions and workers organisations. A line of communication should be established where social partners can submit cases and request investigations, with a regularly updated timeline of progress. This is an opportunity to improve the enforcement of workers’ rights.

Madam President, the Houthis have made a humanitarian intervention in the Red Sea in an effort to bring the genocide in Gaza to an end. The Houthis have killed nobody while disrupting shipping in the Red Sea, ships which were facilitating the Israeli genocide. The Israeli regime has killed over 23 000 civilians. Over 10 000 of them are children. So who do the US and the UK attack? No, they didn’t attack the Israeli regime – because they're supporting the genocide. They attacked the Houthis instead, killing at least six people. So Western powers are prepared to kill people to protect the movement of goods, but the same Western powers kill thousands with sanctions in Iran, in Syria, in Venezuela, preventing the movement of some goods. The Houthis are showing solidarity with the Palestinian people, just like South Africa did in The Hague. But sadly the EU solidarity is with US empire and designers. Shame on the EU!

Madam President, in the last 20 years, beginning in the year 2000, there’s been a gradual deregulation of the financial markets worldwide, beginning with the United States, with the rest of the world, including the EU, following suit. This deregulation has continued at pace, notwithstanding the global financial crisis of 2008. The gradual encroachment of financial speculators into new domains, such as food, water and housing, and the financialisation of these areas has had a serious negative impact on society and needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency, with regulation now required. We are in this position because we have let hedge funds invest and speculate on the human rights of our citizens. Grain, for example, can be sold 60 times on the market, and more sometimes, before it’s eventually used by people. In Ireland, US vulture funds have garnered huge control of the housing supply at a terrible cost to the Irish people, because the neoliberal Irish Government let them do so. This directive of the European Parliament is a start, but we’ve a long way to go.

Mr President, fluorinated gases are supercharged greenhouse gases. Their impact on the climate is often thousands of times more powerful than that of CO2. F-Gas emissions have increased by 60% since 1990, and it's well past time that we seriously tackle their use. The heat pump industry has expressed a lot of concern about this regulation. Heat pumps are essential for Europe's energy transition. In Ireland, more than 80% of new homes built in the last number of years have heat pumps. The industry there is doing really well and should be commended, and we should of course listen to the concerns about availability of alternatives to F-Gases. But there is an emergency brake in the regulation and, also, additional quota can be provided to heat pump manufacturers if shortages arise that might endanger the EU's heat pump installation targets. The EU now needs to give clear financial and political support to the heat pump sector, and since heat pumps are obviously the cleanest heating option, they should also be the most economically attractive to stimulate consumer demand.

Mr Preisdent, you know, the far-right forces in Guatemala are certainly making fools of themselves when they can’t even get the European Parliament on board. Last year, the EU parliament supported the far right coup against President Pedro Castillo in Peru and his replacement by the unelected Dina Boluarte, whose regime killed at least 57 protesters in a series of massacres. The Parliament supported Jeanine Añez’s far-right coup against the democratically-elected socialist president Morales in 2019, giving backing to two massacres, torture, political persecution, illegal detention and summary executions of those who took to the streets in rejection of the coup. The Parliament supported the repeated coup attempts against Venezuela and, for years, embarrassingly recognised the unelected, far-right US puppet Guaido as president of Venezuela. The list goes on. The colonial habits die hard. The EU Parliament still views Latin America as a site of unfettered capitalist exploitation and expropriation, and any leftist who stands in the way must go.

Mr President, if ever there was a single entity that symbolises the current state of the European Union, it’s Frontex, the European border and Coastguard Agency. Frontex, currently the EU’s number one funded agency, personifies the direction the European Union has taken since the von der Leyen Commission took over the reins in 2019. It’s an agency with a mission statement that includes being respectful to people, holding high ethical standards and respecting fundamental rights. But in reality it has done the opposite: it has actively engaged in pushback measures in the Aegean Sea for years, resulting in horrendous atrocities. The EU rightly acted quickly to provide protection and reception conditions to millions of Ukrainians fleeing the war in 2021. Contrast this decision with how the EU continues to utilise Frontex to prevent those fleeing from countries like Syria, Afghanistan and Libya. What’s the difference with these migrants? Is it their skin colour? We should welcome people fleeing persecution without distinction and end the racism that we’re exposing.

Mr President, there is a postgraduate research crisis in Ireland. Many postgrad researchers can no longer afford basic necessities such as food, rent, heating, due to their lack of funding and working status. Now research and the title of this is Young Research. I mean, we have a secondary school curriculum in Ireland and there’s absolutely no initiative around research. I mean, we need to teach young people to think clearly for themselves, and that requires given them the opportunity to research things for themselves. Only a couple of days ago, a young girl from my own area in Wexford contacted me, a 16 year old, and she was researching the US-China relationship and how important it was to the world. But she was looking into it, and she said that she was really shocked to find out that China hadn’t gone to war with any country in 44 years, whereas the US had been at war most of that time. And she said that China had managed to take over 800 million people out of poverty, while the US has stagnated and promoted inequality. Very great initiative from the young girl.