What Mick spoke about.

14

Sep

2023

EN Speech

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Parliamentarism, European citizenship and democracy (A9-0249/2023 - Alin Mituța, Niklas Nienass)

Madam President, I too voted against it as giving the big boys more power than they have already is a disaster. The reforms proposed in this report are only scratching at the surface of the problem. Is the EU a democracy? What started as an ideal has, through the decades, been muddied and garbled by right-wing neoliberal reforms and undemocratic Treaty change. We have deeply flawed institutions th…

14

Sep

2023

EN Speech

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Segregation and discrimination of Roma children in education (debate)

Madam President, like the Roma community across Europe, in Ireland, children from the Traveller community have been systematically failed by the education system. On paper each child has the same right to access education, but in practice it’s a very different story. Racist policies of segregation have created extremely discouraging conditions for Travellers to attend school. According to one repo…

14

Sep

2023

EN Speech

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Improving firefighters’ working conditions (debate)

Madam President, firefighters operate under extremely difficult working conditions and are three times more likely to get cancer than the general population. Yet in Ireland, some 2 000 retained firefighters were recently forced to go on strike due to their dire pay and conditions. Last year, a report by the National Directorate for Fire and Emergency Management recommended significant changes to t…

13

Sep

2023

EN Speech

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2022 Report on Türkiye (A9-0247/2023 - Nacho Sánchez Amor)

Mr President, the Commissioner told us yesterday that the EU was going to give more bags of money to Türkiye to cage refugees so that they don’t get to Europe and they don’t get back to where they came from. I’d love to know, what is the EU plan for the caged refugees – and there are a few million of them – in Türkiye? We don’t want them to go back to Syria, and even if we did, we would have to li…

13

Sep

2023

EN Speech

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Sustainable aviation fuels (ReFuelEU Aviation Initiative) (A9-0199/2022 - José Ramón Bauzá Díaz)

Mr President, this regulation should be an important step in decarbonising the aviation sector, but the agreed targets will not be enough. It’s also disappointing to see that nuclear power can contribute to the production of some of these sustainable fuels. Recital 15 of the regulation states that it should not apply to military aircraft. Emissions from the military industrial complex are greater …

13

Sep

2023

EN Speech

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Regulation of prostitution in the EU: its cross-border implications and impact on gender equality and women’s rights (debate)

Mr President, in 2017, Ireland criminalised the buying of sex, despite widespread condemnation from sex workers, rights organisations and experts at home and abroad. When the Irish law was introduced, studies from various countries already showed that criminalisation, including criminalisation of clients, leads to an increase in violence against women while having little effect on ending trafficki…

13

Sep

2023

EN Speech

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Guatemala: the situation after the elections, the rule of law and judicial independence

Madam President, it’s a novelty to see the OAS, the EU and the US on the same page, condemning right-wing forces in a Latin American election. But the audacity and corruption of the Guatemalan right wing in this instance is breathtaking. President Giammattei has promised an orderly transition of power. But the Attorney General he appointed to a second term, Porras, is intent on blocking Arévalo’s …

13

Sep

2023

EN Speech

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SME Relief Package (debate)

Madam President, we say that SMEs are the backbone of our economy. We say that they represent 99 % of business in Europe. But this is all just lip service; we actually don’t prioritise them. Von der Leyen today spoke of making things easier for industry. She actually wasn’t talking about small- or medium-sized businesses. She was talking about making things easier for the big boys. The big boys do…

13

Sep

2023

EN Speech

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Opening of negotiations of an agreement with the United States of America on strengthening international supply chains of critical minerals (debate)

Mr President, why are we taking the Cold War logic and injecting it into everything? Each day we have stark reminders that the world is teetering on the brink of no return of irreversible climate catastrophe. The answer is global cooperation, but instead we’re digging down into camps and stoking conflict. The US-China trade war we are steadily picking a side in. The endlessly expanding sanctions r…

13

Sep

2023

EN Speech

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Framework for ensuring a secure and sustainable supply of critical raw materials (debate)

Mr President, for decades, we’ve had the laws in place to protect the environment, the workers and the communities where these critical raw materials are extracted. But the record is of widespread child labour, expropriation of land, pollution, corruption, coups, assassinations and armed violence. Are we now to believe that this framework will change all that? That when the EU gives money to priva…

12

Sep

2023

EN Speech

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Relations with Belarus (debate)

Madam President, I, too, would like to appeal to the Belarusian authorities to release Vatslav Oreshko, Vasily Beresnev and Gennady Fedynich, three imprisoned trade unionists. And as my colleague said, we have applied to visit them in prison and we were denied it. We’re far from impressed! On the other issue, I think there should be an acknowledgement that Europe has driven Belarus further away fr…

12

Sep

2023

EN Speech

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Ukrainian grain exports after Russia’s exit from the Black Sea Grain Initiative (debate)

Mr President, when this Black Sea grain initiative collapsed, the EU screamed blue murder about the effects this would have on food-insecure countries in Africa. But at the same time, they fail to acknowledge the fact that according to UN data, just 12 % of the grain was going to Africa, while over 40 % was going to the rich countries of Europe. The collapse of the grain deal, much like the war, i…

12

Sep

2023

EN Speech

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New Agenda for Latin America and the Caribbean in the aftermath of the EU-CELAC Summit (debate)

Madam President, it was reassuring to see that attempts by Parliament to derail the EU-CELAC summit and exclude certain representatives from attending were completely ignored. The EU couldn’t manage to browbeat CELAC about the war either. Zelenskyy was blocked from attending and the only mention of Ukraine in the declaration was one that called for increased diplomatic efforts to secure peace. We …

12

Sep

2023

EN Speech

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Iran: one year after the murder of Jina Mahsa Amini (debate)

Mr President, I do support the right of all Iranians to fundamental rights. After the tragic death of Mahsa Amini and the protests and violent crackdown that followed, this Parliament called for unilateral sanctions on Iran. Many more sanctions packages ensued. Multiple UN reports, including ones in September and December last year, highlight how unilateral sanctions from the EU, US, Australia and…

12

Sep

2023

EN Speech

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EU-Tunisia Agreement - aspects related to external migration policy (debate)

President, in March, the Parliament condemned President Saied’s racist discourse and attacks against sub-Saharan migrants and called on authorities to comply with international law. A few months later, Commission President Von der Leyen was signing a deal with Saied: macro financial support over EUR 100 million in exchange for austerity and stronger border controls – money for social, political an…

11

Sep

2023

EN Speech

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One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

Mr President, last week we discussed the Ukraine facility – EUR 50 billion over four years for reconstruction – while the bombs still rain down. We have a EUR 20 billion Ukraine weapon fund, EUR 5 billion for four years, even if the war ends. This week we vote on a EUR 300 million procurement subsidy. This is on top of the EUR 500 million package for ammunition production in July. And we’re waitin…

11

Sep

2023

EN Speech

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Renewable Energy Directive (debate)

Mr President, despite the many revisions of the Renewable Energy Directive, it still encourages Member States to burn their own forests to meet the directive’s targets. In 2019, when I was a Member of Derry’s Parliament, I debated this issue with the then Irish Minister for Forestry. He told me Sitka spruce occupies 51 % of Ireland’s total forested area – so half of Ireland’s forests are commercia…

11

Sep

2023

EN Speech

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

Madam President, Qatargate hit the headlines in the European Parliament, but it was really just a result of allowing the lobbyists to shape this institution to its core. While we welcome the push for transparency and accountability, the European Parliament will have a lot of work to do to gain the trust of European citizens – from environmental laws watered down to appease big business, to sensele…

11

Sep

2023

EN Speech

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Surface water and groundwater pollutants (debate)

Madam President, I welcome the revision of these directives. The chemical status of surface and groundwater in the EU is in poor condition. The stricter thresholds for PFAS are welcome. These so-called forever chemicals have been detected in more than 70 % of the groundwater measuring points in the EU. We know that PFAS pose enormous health and environmental risks and that big corporations have li…

11

Sep

2023

EN Speech

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

Madam President, tomorrow, Parliament will vote to hand over further hundreds of millions for arms procurement – EUR 300 million for EDIRPA up to the end of December 2025. This is on top of the ASAP deal voted in July, approving EUR 500 million for ammunition over the same period. The arms industry lobbyists have much to celebrate. And the war grinds on, killing hundreds of thousands and wiping ou…

13

Jul

2023

EN Speech

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

Mr President, I voted in favour of this. On 14 June, over 500 people trying to get to Europe were declared missing, presumed dead, when their boat sank off the coast of Greece. This is just one of the string of such disasters, and there have been further deaths since. At the beginning of this mandate, this Parliament voted not to conduct search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean. We decide…

13

Jul

2023

EN Speech

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

Mr President, it’s been 10 years since these guidelines on freedom of religion or belief were implemented, and the progress is nothing to boast about. There’s been a lack of public implementation reports to monitor the implementation of guidelines. And, since 2019, Parliament has been calling for greater transparency. A report by the European Parliament’s Intergroup on Freedom of Religion highligh…

12

Jul

2023

EN Speech

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State of the EU-Cuba PDCA in the light of the recent visit of the High Representative to the island (RC-B9-0311/2023, B9-0311/2023, B9-0313/2023, B9-0320/2023, B9-0321/2023, B9-0322/2023)

Mr President, at the last plenary, we listened to High Representative Borrell report back from his visit to Cuba in May, and he was strong in his responses to attacks by the far right on the EU—Cuba Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement. Borrell acknowledged the extensive reform process undertaken in Cuba initiated by Raul Castro’s transition government: reforms around the private sector, t…

12

Jul

2023

EN Speech

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The political disqualifications in Venezuela

Madam President, the hypocrisy of those criticising Venezuela for alleged human-rights abuses and blocking far-right opposition figures is astounding. You’re silent on the brutal sanctions regime that has killed tens of thousands of Venezuelans since 2017. Not a word about the billions in Venezuelan assets stolen by Portuguese and British banks, money needed to save lives during the COVID-19 pande…

12

Jul

2023

EN Speech

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

Madam President, there are some good elements to this report – necessary reforms to Parliament’s rules of transparency and corruption – which makes it all the more regrettable that the report is so heavily politicised. You would forget why it was initiated in the first place: the cash for influence bribery scandal at the centre of Parliament. Instead, this report is a screed against perceived Russ…