Speeches

Mr President, the right of petition in the European Parliament is the oldest participatory mechanism in the EU. They are a method for citizens to engage directly in democracy on issues such as how the EU governs and enforces laws that affect their lives. As the majority of petitions concern EU law, and as the von der Leyen Commission is the enforcer of EU law, for the petition process to work for citizens, the Commission needs to support it. Unfortunately, like many of the positive measures that this Parliament can take, petitions have been stifled and made obsolete by the Commission, who view them as irrelevant. It excludes the majority of individual petitions with the blanket reasoning that they do not raise issues of wider principle. The Commission also continuously passes the buck on petitions and enforcement, referring the questions back to Member States and national governments. This defeats the purpose of allowing EU citizens to petition the European Parliament. One of the goals of the Lisbon Treaty was to increase direct participation by EU citizens, with petitions being central to this goal. The Commission has utterly failed to honour its side of the bargain in this regard.

Madam President, yes, we do need a full transition away from fossil fuels. We also need to remember what that sounds like to people who cannot heat their homes this winter. To people who have never had a full tank in their car. What we need is an energy transition that’s planned and fair. This doesn’t mean compromising on ambition. We could do things even quicker, but without taking control of the transition, we will not have the social acceptance. We need a decarbonised energy system that actually benefits ordinary people. With wind turbines going up, people need to see their energy bills go down. Ireland, like the rest of Europe, saw a drastic increase in energy bills last year because of the whims of our liberalised energy market. And next October, VAT on electricity will go back up 13.5 %. We need to stop the price roller coaster and instead rapidly roll out energy infrastructure which local communities can see they’re benefiting.

Madam President, more public money for the arms industry – will the billions of euros we give to these warmongers ever be enough? Not according to Jan Pie, Secretary-General of the Aerospace and Defence Industries Association of Europe. After the EUR 300 million EDIRPA handout in October, Jan doubted whether it would make a tangible difference. He went on to demand that the European defence investment programme must be more ambitious. You would swear we work for these parasites. And given the astronomical sums you have handed over to the arms industry since the catastrophic NATO-proxy war in Ukraine, you’d be forgiven for thinking there’s something fishy going on. The European Ombudsman has even opened an inquiry into how the European Commission ensures external experts, who help it evaluate the European defence fund project proposals, do not have conflicts of interest. You have blown the EU budget on the unwinnable war in Ukraine, and now you want another billion for these merchants of debt. It’s pretty obvious whose interest you represent.

Mr President, Commissioner, the EU’s combined GDP for 2023 stood at over EUR 18 trillion. And yet at the same time, home ownership for those aged between 25 and 34 within the European Union stands at its lowest percentage since the establishment of the single market. How can the EU be awash with money when, at the same time, home ownership and affordable housing for young people living within the Union is now almost a pipe dream? In Ireland, supply of housing has been a disaster. Not only is homeownership unattainable, renting is not even an option for many young people either, as successive governments have allowed the rental market to dictate the price. Between 2010 and 2021, rents in Ireland increased by 68 %. At the same period in Europe, it was 16 %. We’ve had right wing Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael governments for 102 years since we got rid of the Brits and they fell in love with deregulation and privatisation a long time ago, and sadly they have been a disaster around everything to do with housing. They have no interest in building social housing, no interest in building affordable housing. They’re tied to the markets and the people have been let go to hell.

Mr President, it is difficult to take your concern for the environmental consequences of the war in Ukraine seriously. There’s only a handful of anti-war people in this room. 80 % of you voted down our amendments calling for increased diplomacy and efforts to bring about peace in Ukraine. How can the same people who voted to pour tens of billions in arms into keeping a NATO proxy war going, now pretend to care about the environmental consequences? Did you care about the environmental impact of the wars of Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen or even Gaza today? Do you care about the environmental impact of the brutal sanctions regimes in place against Venezuela, Syria, Iran, Zimbabwe, Yemen? Whatever about the environment? You don’t even care about the hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths Western sanctions have caused in these countries. Show me the campaign to bring accountability for the environmental crimes of NATO. And maybe we’ll take you serious. People that care about the environment don’t promote war. The Greens should cop onto that one.

Mr President, you want to frame China as a threat to our economic security, yet the US and NATO have just crippled our economy: they stoked the conflict in Ukraine, supported Maidan and fuelled the Donbass war since 2014. Stoltenberg, the NATO boss, came into our committee and boasted about provoking Russia by ignoring their plea for a neutral Ukraine, and it was either the US or Ukraine that seem to have blown up Nord Stream 2, but we don’t seem to be interested. The war has crippled Germany, triggering an EU-wide recession, but the US is laughing all the way to the bank: it has supplanted Russian gas, its arms industry has made a killing flooding Europe with weapons and US firms now own vast tracts of Ukrainian land. From their safety across the ocean, the US are now stoking a wider regional conflict in the Middle East. The US is the number one threat to our economic security.

You’re calling Israel a democratic state? Let me tell you something, right: democratic states don’t behave like an apartheid state. They don’t commit collective punishment. They do not bomb hospitals, refugee camps and people’s homes. They don’t commit genocide. Israel is not a democratic state. Stop telling that lie. Jews all over the world are horrified at the Zionist State of Israel at the moment and the Jews all over the world are gathering... (The President cut off the speaker)

Mr President, this debate calls on Hamas to release all hostages. What about Israel, who have been locking up Palestinians like nobody’s business since 7 October? Israel holds over 7 000 political prisoners, 2 000 of which are held in administrative detention without a time limit, without trial, and without committing an offence. They are hostages. The Israelis must also release all Palestinians held hostage in administrative detention. The US veto at the United Nations Security Council made it perfectly clear that they don’t care how many war crimes they participate in. There will also be no ceasefire until their geostrategic objectives are achieved, namely the India-Middle East-Europe economic corridor that will enter the Mediterranean through northern Gaza. The US effort to counter China’s Belt and Road has been inaugurated and christened in the blood of Palestinian children. As for the two-state solution, it is dead, it is a fig leaf for doing nothing and letting Israel’s terrorist apartheid state continue doing as they do, as we facilitated for years. Only one state with full human rights and equal rights for Palestinians and Israelis will be compatible with international law. We need a permanent ceasefire, not a humanitarian... (The President cut off the speaker) (The speaker agreed to take a blue-card question)

Madam President, when Georgia announced the foreign agents law that would compel NGOs to disclose foreign funding, High Representative Borrell was quick to condemn, stating that this law is incompatible with EU values and standards. Conversely, when Commissioner von der Leyen announced a similar law with her defence of democracy package, it was because the law was essential to defend the same EU values. The lesson being: EU exceptionalism is central to that value system. Also exceptional is the concept of democracy von der Leyen and others hold dear. We’re in a parliament that cannot initiate legislation, is crawling with lobbyists and corruption scandals, and is wholly dominated by a right-wing majority in thrall to US and NATO, militarism, war and the interests of Western financial capital above those of the people of Europe who elected them. The fact that the EU considers the genocidal settler colonial apartheid state of Israel a like-minded partner and a bastion of democracy, tells you precisely how meaningless the concept of democracy is in the EU today. Yez haven’t a leg to stand on.

Madam President, Article 7 of the regulation will create a legal obligation for doctors to upload a summary of each patient’s treatment to the new data space. There is no provision in the regulation for objections to this rule or a right to object, even when it comes to especially sensitive diseases or therapies. Patients would be able to restrict access to their health records, but not to creation of these records. Patients will also have to actively object to prevent healthcare providers and industry from using their data, otherwise their data will be automatically shared. They will have massive ramifications for medical confidentiality. In relation to the secondary use of the data: firstly, the legal basis for the secondary use is not clearly defined, and the purposes for which such secondary processing is permitted is not specific enough. Secondly, the range of categories of health data that can be shared is too broad. Reliable data sets can, of course, be an extremely useful tool for researchers, but this cannot come at the expense of fundamental rights.

Mr President, the UK agreed a trade partnership with Taiwan last month, upsetting Beijing, who object to any international actions that appear to recognise Taiwan’s sovereignty. Just 13 countries have official diplomatic relations with Taiwan, mainly British Commonwealth islands, US military bases moonlighting as sovereign nations, and countries ruled by an overt fascist. Those pushing for the EU to follow the British example are doing the work of the US and NATO. The US is engaged in an economic war with China, and much like they used Ukraine to sever economic ties between the EU and Russia, tanking German industry and creating an EU-wide recession in the process, they will use Taiwan to cut the EU from China. This will be the final nail in the coffin for EU industry and for essential cooperation on essential matters like climate change. I only hope the people of Taiwan look at the sad fate of Ukraine and are wise enough not to let themselves be sacrificed at the altar of US imperialist designs.

Mr President, the transition to renewables will require a massive increase in levels of extraction. Well, we can significantly limit that increase by reducing absolute resource consumption. The Parliament’s 2021 report on the Circular Economy Action Plan called on the Commission to propose targets to significantly reduce the EU’s material and consumption footprints by 2030 and bring them within planetary boundaries by 2050. That was three years ago, and still the Commission has not acted. Instead, with the Critical Raw Materials Act, the EU is preparing to write a blank cheque for the mining and arms industries while pretending this is climate action. Aluminium and titanium have been added to the list of critical raw materials. These minerals have very little to do with the energy transition, but they are crucial for the arms industry and the F-22 stealth bomber contains 39% titanium. The Critical Raw Materials Act will not make our economy greener, but it will certainly make a fortune for the arms industry.

Madam President, yet another high-level Ukrainian official has come out to say that NATO blocked Ukraine peace talks. David Arakhamia was a top negotiator for the Ukrainian delegation during the spring 2022 peace talks held in Istanbul. He says Russia was prepared to end the war if Ukraine committed to not joining NATO. But the Western powers weren’t interested, and Boris Johnson flew to Kyiv on 9April to inform Zelenskyy that Ukraine would not be signing anything on Russia and told him to just keep fighting. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians have since been killed. Ukraine is destroyed, and refugees are still fleeing the collapsing society. The war is driving the EU into recession. Ukraine and the EU have been sacrificed for NATO’s geostrategic goals, and Brussels has paved the way. You wouldn’t call for peace in Ukraine, and now you won’t call for a ceasefire in Gaza. Ukraine and Gaza are two bloodbaths that the EU has been happy to facilitate. We should be ashamed of ourselves.

Madam President, access to mental healthcare is a human right. Yet in Ireland, more than 4 500 children are on a waiting list for the Children and Adolescent Mental Health Service. More than 500 children have been waiting for more than a year, and some have been waiting for more than two years. We’ve had a suicide epidemic in my own county of Wexford for years. Ireland spends just 6% of its total health budget on mental health. Germany spends 12%, Norway spends 13.5% and France spends 15%. In Ireland, we have a medicalised mental health model that all stakeholders appear to agree is a massive problem. Over 15 000 prescriptions for antidepressants were issued to children aged 15 and younger last year in Ireland. That’s an increase of 130% compared to 10 years ago. Yet still, we have little or no public health talk therapy, and any EU mental health strategy must take an integrated and rights-based approach and should reject the medicalised mental health model.

Madam President, the European Transport Workers Federation says poor work organisation, difficult working conditions, stress and fatigue due to ineffective brakes, increased workload due to additional tasks and a lack of enforcement are the main causes of driver shortages in the bus and coach sector. The drivers union wants better enforcement of the existing rules and no further flexibility. The existing driving and resting time rules already have the potential to ensure a decent work environment for these drivers, and there is no reason to revise them. This is the view of the union that represents the drivers themselves, the people most affected by the proposed changes. We should listen to those most affected, to workers, not to their bosses in the transport operation Union. Europe is not the bastion of workers rights it thinks it is all the time. Its overall rating in the Global Rights Index, published by the International Trade Union Confederation, has fallen significantly in the last ten years. Workers across Europe deserve better.

Madam President, the promotion of the nuclear industry this report proposes would be a waste of money, and it would do little to address the climate crisis. Small modular reactors do not address the fundamental problems associated with the nuclear industry. They fail to address the persistent nuclear waste problem, and introduce new risks in terms of the proliferation of nuclear materials. They are incredibly expensive and unproven solutions. The IPCC AR6 Report from March this year is absolutely clear that nuclear power is one of the two least effective mitigation options, alongside carbon capture and storage. Our focus should be on what we already know works to rapidly reduce emissions: energy efficiency and renewables. Where do you think you’re going to source the uranium for these reactors? Presumably, France will continue its colonial exploitation of the Sahel. Their nuclear industry is built on the back of cheap uranium supplies from places like Niger and Mali.

Madam President, another report watered down by the EPP. In the last two years we have gone from crisis to crisis. COVID-19, the war in Ukraine and the resulting cost of living crisis have exasperated pre-existing structural challenges such as climate change, an ageing population and rising inequality. While the vast majority of people struggle to pay their bills, there are those that continue to reap massive profits from these crises. Inflation has gripped the EU economy as corporations artificially keep prices high. Corporate profits accounted for almost half of the increases in Europe’s inflation over the past two years, whereas growth in wages last year was just a half of the increase in the cost of living. And the billionaires that profit are paying tax rates less than 1% of their wealth. This can’t go on. We need to tax the rich and tax corporate greed. We need tax justice and we need it now.

Madam President, no pollinators means no agriculture. It’s as simple as that. In 2020, the European Court of Auditors found that the first EU pollinators initiative had little effect on the halting of pollinator decline. It’s very hard to have any fate at all in the revised initiative’s ability to halt pollinator decline after what happened in this Chamber yesterday with the Sustainable Use of Pesticides Regulation vote. The EPP tabled an amendment to the pollinators initiative report to delete support for the alignment of the pollinators initiative with the Nature Restoration Law. They do not want legally binding rules, just guidelines. They do not want binding national reduction targets, just plans. There were 65 votes in favour of this report in the Environment Committee, 1 vote against and 3 abstentions. But this is just a report with no consequences in the real world. It’s not legislation. Everyone says they want to save the bees, but only unless it means intensive agriculture can continue as normal and we don’t have to upset big agri and the pesticide companies.

Madam President, this report on humanitarian aid strategy talks about increasing aid, preventive measures on conflict and the climate crisis, and ensuring sanctions do not hinder aid provision. The sad truth is the EU and its allies are barrelling along in the opposite direction. NATO occupied and bombed Afghanistan for 20 years, flooding the place with weapons, then ran away with 7 billion in central bank funds. Millions are attempting to flee due to food insecurity, approaching famine conditions, breakdown of the economy and natural disasters. And still, the West refuses to lift the crippling sanctions that are the main drivers of the crisis. Millions flee to Iran, but we’re sanctioning them to death as well. What about Yemen, where EU Member States took part in a genocidal war that used famine as a weapon? It’s almost obscene for the EU to talk about innovative aid strategies when our like-minded partners, the US, are revealing the coordinates of aid groups in Gaza so Israel can bomb them, and now the Commission has sanctioned them, so they’ll never be able to rebuild. Let’s get real.

Madam President, this is not a serious report. It’s reckless and irresponsible in the extreme. I voted against it. The greatest risk to EU space infrastructure is the abundance of space traffic and debris. The solution is to develop, at UN level, an effective framework for the coordination of space situational awareness, and to develop norms and principles for space debris removal. Instead, the report weaponises trumped up nonsense and threat inflation about goodies and baddies, with the aim of militarising and creating an arms race in space while cutting off avenues of international cooperation. It is a bonanza for the arms industry, whose money is obviously well spent wearing out the carpets in the Commission and Parliament in Brussels, but a disaster for humankind, who need there to be a multilateral collaboration and a peaceful operating theatre in space in order to navigate the central threat to life on Earth, the climate crisis. We need a new international treaty to ensure peace, security and prevention of a space arms race. The report works against this essential need.

Madam President, the Irish Federation of University Teachers has warned of alarming levels of precarious employment in Irish higher education institutions. Among the 550 academics they surveyed, 36% consider themselves precariously employed. Thousands of workers in third-level institutions in Ireland have non-permanent, temporary or zero-hour contracts, often with no access to benefits such as holiday or sick pay. The younger they are, the worse it gets. PhD researchers in Ireland are officially classified as students. This means they are in a grey area, where they face most requirements of employment, but reap hardly any of the benefits. The average PhD stipend is one of the lowest in the European Union and well below the minimum wage. And remember, Ireland is one of the most expensive countries in Europe to live in. Irish universities who are chronically underfunded have come to rely on the unpaid labour of PhD students to keep the lights on. It’s unacceptable. All researchers deserve fair wages and a dignified working environment.

Mr President, violence against women is barbaric. Over 3000 women have been violently killed in Gaza in less than 50 days. Israel has unleashed its four horsemen of the apocalypse on the women of Gaza: death, famine, war and conquest. It has given them two choices: leave Gaza or die. More Palestinian women will be killed, not just with bombs and bullets, but from hunger and epidemics. The handful of aid trucks into Gaza is a cynic public relations play. Humanitarian corridors, pauses in the shelling – these are vehicles to facilitate the depopulation of Gaza, just as the two-state solution has become a fig leaf for inaction, for allowing Israel to continue with its settler colonial project. Where’s the outcry for the women of Gaza? Where our humanitarian interventionists is now? The ones who wept crocodile tears for women and human rights in Ukraine, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan and Yemen, just to justify arms shipments and war. It would make you sick.

I have no problem addressing abuses anywhere. And to tell you the truth, I haven’t seen a government I liked anywhere on the planet yet, not even in Ireland. But what is really sickening is the inconsistency in this place. There’s over 5 000 children dead in Gaza. There’s over 3 000 women. It’s a genocide being carried out by a brutal apartheid regime. And this place is supporting the genocide. This place still hasn’t called for a ceasefire. We still supply arms to the Israelis to kill Palestinian people. What gives us the moral right? (The President cut off the speaker)

Mr President, do you seriously think this institution has the moral or political authority to shout about breaches of human rights in Hong Kong, or anywhere else for that matter, when the majority of MEPs in here are supporting a genocide in Gaza? Once again, we are carrying out the bidding of NATO hawks. Chinese President Xi Jinping went to the US to work towards thawing relations last week. Why are you here stirring the pot again on the pretext of human rights abuses, when you clearly don’t give a damn about human rights? Can we talk about the right to protest and freedom of expression being taken away by France and Germany? Can we talk about the French and German police brutalising and arresting thousands of protesters in the streets and German forces raiding people’s homes for showing solidarity with the besieged Palestinian people? How can you throw stones with the blood of over 5 000 children on your hands? The moral bankruptcy of European exceptionalism knows no bounds. (The speaker agreed to take a blue-card question)

Mr President, this push for a more featherless EU with qualified majority voting is grist to the mill of those who argue the EU is an anti-democratic entity. The people of Ireland rejected the Lisbon Treaty in 2008 because of the potential loss of sovereignty, neoliberal reforms and the threat to Ireland’s neutrality. The second referendum saw the treaty accepted because of an intense ‘yes’ campaign that threatened and bullied the Irish people into submission. Those who campaigned for the ‘no’ vote have been vindicated and more. We could have imagined how militaristic the EU would become, how undemocratic it would become, where our foreign policy is being run by the United States. Now, a proposal to go even further to silence minority positions, when only a small minority oppose a genocide happening before our eyes in Gaza. Those who are so keen to build a militarised Europe are doing untold damage to the European project that we yearn for. The people of Europe don’t want your militarised Europe.