What Mick spoke about.

21

Nov

2023

EN Speech

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Packaging and packaging waste (debate)

Mr President, the Killarney Coffee Cup Project is an amazing voluntary initiative by small businesses in the south-west of Ireland. They recently implemented a project that now includes over 50 businesses moving away from single-use coffee cups. Before the project started, Killarney was throwing away one million cups per year. Louise Byrne from the Killarney Coffee Cup Project said, ‘Often packagi…

21

Nov

2023

EN Speech

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Sustainable use of plant protection products (debate)

Madam President, the science is clear that the climate and biodiversity crises are the biggest threats to global food security. There’s not a single serious scientist in Europe who would argue that this new Pesticides Regulation or the Nature Restoration Law would pose a risk to European food security. The main objective of the proposal is not to even ban pesticides, but to replace them with safe …

20

Nov

2023

EN Speech

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One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

Mr President, recently, Craig Mokhiber, a director at the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, resigned because he said UN leadership had failed in Gaza. They have, he said, ‘shamefully bowed their heads to power’. In his resignation letter, he said, ‘As a human rights lawyer with more than three decades of experience in the field, I know well that the concept of genocide has often been subject …

20

Nov

2023

EN Speech

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Union certification framework for carbon removals

Mr President, the vote in the Environment Committee significantly improves the Commission’s proposal, but that was a low bar. This is still far from being a good climate instrument. Despite the improvements, the biggest problem is that the text now actually encourages double claiming between a Member State and a cooperation. That sounds crazy. It is great that we are now proposing to ban offsettin…

20

Nov

2023

EN Speech

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Common rules promoting the repair of goods

Mr President, right to repair needs to be affordable, accessible and mainstream. It also needs to be protected from monopoly practices, so the right to repair needs to guarantee unrestricted access to spare parts and software, to comprehensive information, and to affordable repair services. The regulation should support local, grassroots and community repair initiatives, co-ops and social enterpri…

20

Nov

2023

EN Speech

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Framework of measures for strengthening Europe’s net-zero technology products manufacturing ecosystem (Net Zero Industry Act) (debate)

Madam President, the general direction of the net-zero technologies act report isn’t good and is even a significant weakening of the Commission’s proposal, which already left plenty to be desired. The report proposes to give public money to private enterprises with little or no conditions. It says nothing about workers’ rights and conditions. It dilutes the strategic focus we need on wind and sola…

20

Nov

2023

EN Speech

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UN Climate Change Conference 2023 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (COP28) (debate)

Madam President, COP conferences are now mostly theatres of climate colonialism, led mainly by corporations, powerful governments of the Global North and elites, where we see a performance of diversion and delay with little or no substance, repeated annually. But the staging of COP in the UAE, one of the biggest oil producers on the planet, a country that is waging war in Yemen and that has an abs…

20

Nov

2023

EN Speech

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Children first - strengthening the Child Guarantee, two years on from its adoption - Reducing inequalities and promoting social inclusion in times of crisis for children and their families (joint debate – International Day of the Rights of the Child)

Madam President, the Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted on this day in 1989 by the UN. The US still has not signed it. Israel has killed over 5000 children in the last six weeks, thanks to the support of the US and the EU. American journalist Chris Hedges was in an Al Jazeera studio watching a live feed from Gaza City of Israel attacking al-Shifa Hospital: ‘A deliberate attack on a …

9

Nov

2023

EN Speech

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Effectiveness of the EU sanctions on Russia (RC-B9-0453/2023, B9-0453/2023, B9-0454/2023, B9-0455/2023, B9-0456/2023, B9-0457/2023)

Madam President, the headlines are singing the same tune: the war in Ukraine is done; time for negotiations. The best deal Ukraine can hope for is what was on offer in April 2022, when Zelenskyy and the Russians were willing to agree to postpone the Crimea issue, strong federalism or autonomy for eastern Ukraine with language rights – effectively, the platform Zelenskyy was elected on with 73% of …

9

Nov

2023

EN Speech

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System of own resources of the European Union (A9-0295/2023 - José Manuel Fernandes, Valérie Hayer)

Madam President, revising the system of own resources for the EU is all about boosting the EU’s budget, ability to respond to growing demands and new crises, and dealing with the repayment of the NextGenerationEU debt. A new common cooperation tax and a financial transaction tax are clearly good things that simply couldn’t function at an individual Member State level. But what will this new basket…

8

Nov

2023

EN Speech

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One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

Madam President, there’s probably never been a time where international law and respect for international law has seemed so important, but it’s a huge problem. We were right to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine because it breached the sovereignty of a country. I don’t think we were right, though, to spend billions making sure that it didn’t stop. Our lack of consistency in how we talk about …

8

Nov

2023

EN Speech

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Strengthening the right to participate: legitimacy and resilience of electoral processes in illiberal political systems and authoritarian regimes (debate)

Madam President, I don’t really recognise the world that this report describes. The values it claims it is based on don’t exist. How can we lecture non-EU countries about human rights and democracy when we go around the world fuelling wars and sanctioning countries to death? How can we pontificate about democracy and human rights when we not only call the fascist apartheid state of Israel a democr…

8

Nov

2023

EN Speech

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Type-approval of motor vehicles and engines with respect to their emissions and battery durability (Euro 7) (debate)

Mr President, this legislation should be about setting adequate standards to improve public health and save lives. Yet the right-wing groups instead want to limit costs for car manufacturers. It’s estimated that pollution from road transport causes 70 000 premature deaths every year in the EU, as the Commissioner herself highlighted. Yet some groups want to put the interests of big business ahead …

8

Nov

2023

EN Speech

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State of the Energy Union (debate)

Mr President, one of the primary objectives of the Energy Union was to provide clean and affordable energy for the people of Europe. Yet, Irish consumers pay annual energy bills that are about EUR 800 more than the average in the EU. Irish households pay EUR 0.47 per kilowatt-hour for electricity, compared to a European average of EUR 0.26. That’s nearly double the EU average. The EU has pushed th…

8

Nov

2023

EN Speech

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Conclusions of the European Council meeting of 26-27 October 2023 - Humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the need for a humanitarian pause (joint debate - Conclusions of the European Council and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the need for a humanitarian pause)

Madam President, over 4 000 children have been killed by the colonial Israeli regime in one month. Eight times more children have been killed in Gaza in one month than in all of the Ukraine war. Eight times more! And EU leaders are still talking about Israel’s right to defend itself. Defend itself? Is bombing hospitals and churches defending itself? Is bombing refugee camps defending itself? Is sl…

19

Oct

2023

EN Speech

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European protein strategy (A9-0281/2023 - Emma Wiesner)

Mr President, the EU’s reliance on imported soya bean is a massive contributor to deforestation and land grabbing in South America. Yet this report doesn’t mention the Mercosur deal once. Facilitating the importation of feed that is 30% cheaper than the likes of Irish-grown feed, and which doesn’t have to adhere to the same EU standards, will put Irish and European grain producers at a massive dis…

19

Oct

2023

EN Speech

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The despicable terrorist attacks by Hamas against Israel, Israel’s right to defend itself in line with humanitarian and international law and the humanitarian situation in Gaza (RC-B9-0436/2023, B9-0436/2023, B9-0438/2023, B9-0442/2023, B9-0444/2023, B9-0445/2023, B9-0447/2023, B9-0448/2023)

Mr President, we voted against. It doesn’t call for a ceasefire and it doesn’t treat the victims equally. What Hamas did on 7 October was a brutal act of terrorism. Why do our EU leaders find it so difficult to call out the activities of Israel as terrorism? Why are they so reluctant to actually say that Israel is a terrorist state? Why are they so reluctant to say that Israel behaves like an apar…

19

Oct

2023

EN Speech

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Recent developments in the Serbia-Kosovo dialogue, including the situation in the northern municipalities in Kosovo (RC-B9-0437/2023, B9-0437/2023, B9-0439/2023, B9-0440/2023, B9-0441/2023, B9-0446/2023)

Mr President, when Albin Kurti announced in April that elections would be held in the Serbian-majority municipalities in the north, Serbs said their participation was conditional on Pristina establishing the Community of Serb Municipalities allowed for in the Brussels Agreement first. When there was barely a peep out of the international community that administers Kosovo, Kurti saw this as tacit s…

19

Oct

2023

EN Speech

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Commission proposal for a Council recommendation on developing social economy framework conditions (debate)

Mr President, key tenants of the social economy, investing profit into social objectives, promoting good environmental practices, as well as acting as a vehicle to include women, the disadvantaged and under-represented groups into the labour market, are elements that should be part of our economy as the norm. In Ireland, a cost-benefit analysis has found that for every euro invested in training an…

19

Oct

2023

EN Speech

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European Citizens' Initiative 'Fur Free Europe' (debate)

Madam President, fur farming is deeply cruel. It’s also bad for biodiversity as mink is an invasive species in Europe. We want to see a ban on fur farming in the EU, and we want to see a ban on farmed fur products, but this should not be the limit of our ambition in terms of animal welfare reforms. In the Farm to Fork Strategy, the Commission promised that it would propose a revision of the EU’s a…

18

Oct

2023

EN Speech

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Fighting disinformation and dissemination of illegal content in the context of the Digital Services Act and in times of conflict (debate)

Madam President, over 3 000 Palestinians have been killed and 10 000 wounded in 11 days. Over 1 000 children murdered. The Israeli government has been targeting network installations and 2.3 million people are struggling to reach the outside world, their relatives. Anyone with a shred of humanity is trying to raise awareness of Israeli war crimes. And what’s the response of Europe? Banning public …

18

Oct

2023

EN Speech

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Rule of Law in Malta: 6 years after the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia and the need to protect journalists (debate)

Madam President, when Israeli snipers intentionally shot and killed Shireen Abu Akleh in May last year, she joined over 20 other journalists martyred by the Israeli regime since 2001. No one has faced any accountability for these murders. The courageous Daphne Caruana Galizia, whose memory we are honouring today, would be calling for accountability for these murders. She couldn’t understand why he…

18

Oct

2023

EN Speech

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Presentation of the Court of Auditors' annual report 2022 (debate)

Mr President, President Murphy, when you published your annual report on 5 October, you also published your opinion on the establishment of the Ukraine facility – an impressive document, despite the fact that you were limited in providing a fully informed opinion, given that the Commission refused to prepare an impact assessment. You point out in Section 34 that given the level of grand corruption…

17

Oct

2023

EN Speech

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Urgent need for a coordinated European response and legislative framework on intrusive spyware, based on the PEGA inquiry committee recommendations (debate)

Mr President, it’s a fact that Pegasus spyware was battle-tested on civilians and human rights activists in Palestine. The Occupied Territories are some of the most surveilled places on earth. For Israeli companies engaged in developing spyware, the Occupied Territories have always been a laboratory where their products can be tested before being marketed and exported around the world for profit. …

17

Oct

2023

EN Speech

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Water scarcity and structural investments in access to water in the EU (debate)

Mr President, the latest drinking water quality report by the Environmental Protection Agency in Ireland says nearly half a million people in Ireland get their water from ‘at-risk’ supplies. The report is hugely critical of the fact that Irish Water has no upgrade or improvement plan, with completion dates for 18 of the 58 water supplies on its remedial action list. There was a total of 79 boil wa…