What Billy spoke about.

7 Apr

2022

EN Speech

Mental Health (debate)

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Mr President, I too welcome the opportunity to speak on this very important issue and I want to compliment all colleagues across all political parties that keep this very much to the fore in the European Parliament. Of course, there are significant challenges now because of the COVID-19 pandemic, social isolation, individual isolation, the changes in economic circumstances of families and individu…

6 Apr

2022

EN Speech

Conclusions of the European Council meeting of 24-25 March 2022: including the latest developments of the war against Ukraine and the EU sanctions against Russia and their implementation (debate)

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Madam President, how many more Buchas? How many more Mariupols? How many more refugees? How many more bombed-out maternity hospitals? How many more mass graves? How many more rapes and summary executions? How many more war crimes do we have to unearth before we realise and accept and declare Putin as a war criminal? The only way to address this war criminal is by bringing his industrial-military c…

5 Apr

2022

EN Speech

Trans-European energy infrastructure (A9-0269/2021 - Zdzisław Krasnodębski)

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Mr President, I was happy to support the final vote on the revision of the TEN-E guidelines. It is a very significant proposal. Many of the projects of common interest included are aimed at enhancing energy security across the EU. One of the very important ones on that particular list is the Celtic interconnector, which is an essential piece of energy infrastructure needed to protect Irish interes…

5 Apr

2022

EN Speech

Future of fisheries in the Channel, North Sea, Irish Sea and Atlantic Ocean (A9-0042/2022 - Manuel Pizarro)

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Mr President, I supported the vote at today’s plenary session as it was a reasonable proposition. However, last week I was actually willing to co-sign amendments tabled by my constituency colleague, Mick Wallace MEP, highlighting the inequity of the current fishing quota allocations, especially following Brexit. We have to accept now that Brexit had a catastrophic effect on the Irish fishing indus…

5 Apr

2022

EN Speech

Outcome of the EU-China Summit (1 April 2022) (debate)

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Mr President, I’m very disappointed with the outcome of the EU—China summit. I think it highlighted the fact that we can no longer trust China as an honest, independent broker in terms of being a partner in trade or in diplomacy. The fact that in the discussions around Ukraine and how it exposed itself to be a supporter of an illegal invasion where there are catastrophic, humanitarian challenges n…

5 Apr

2022

EN Speech

Situation in Afghanistan, in particular the situation of women’s rights (debate)

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Madam President, (inaudible) proverb, if you educate a man, you educate an individual, but if you educate a woman, you educate a nation. Now more than ever, we have to stand with the women and girls of Afghanistan to ensure that their basic rights are vindicated at some stage in the future. We have to give them hope. The tragedy that is Afghanistan has been unfolding before our eyes for the last 5…

4 Apr

2022

EN Speech

One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

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Mr President, we need a rapid review of the VAT Directive. There is no point in us continuing to wait and prevaricate any further. It has been agreed by the Council and by the Minister of Finance that there is a fundamental need for us to have flexibility at Member State level in terms of the VAT Directive. We are now talking about the decision being made in April or May of this year to afford cou…

9 Mar

2022

EN Speech

European Withholding Tax framewor (debate)

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Mr President, first of all, I’d like to thank the rapporteur Pedro Marques and my fellow shadows for the excellent work on this particular report. Of course, the withholding tax framework was unfortunately thrust into the spotlight by a series of scandals involving flawed and complex webs of transactions in the so-called cum-ex and cum-cum scandals. It is clear that the framework needs reform. We …

9 Mar

2022

EN Speech

Fair and simple taxation supporting the recovery strategy (continuation of debate)

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Mr President, I welcome the debate on this particular issue regarding the report on fair and simple taxation supporting recovery. And I suppose while we were publishing these reports and processing these reports the last number of weeks, we are now very much in a new dispensation, Commissioner. We face existential challenges in terms of the Ukrainian crisis, and it has changed all the basic metric…

9 Mar

2022

EN Speech

European Semester for economic policy coordination: annual sustainable growth survey 2022 – European Semester for economic policy coordination: employment and social aspects in the annual sustainable growth strategy survey 2022 (debate)

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Madam President, at the outset the immediate priority must be to support the countries – Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Moldova – in welcoming and supporting and assisting the Ukrainian refugees that are pouring across our borders to the sanctuary of Europe. I visited western Ukraine last weekend to see thousands and thousands of people dragging their bags behind them as they walked for ki…

15 Feb

2022

EN Speech

Strengthening Europe in the fight against cancer(debate)

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Madam President, strengthening Europe in the fight against cancer and the Commission’s Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan are both very welcome initiatives, and of course, we should learn something from the pandemic, Commissioner: your role and that of the Commission and Europe in general, pooling its resources, coming together to face a significant challenge. There’s nothing as significant as the chall…

14 Feb

2022

EN Speech

European Central Bank – annual report 2021 (continuation of debate)

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Madam President, inflation is a continuing challenge now at the moment. The Commission published its Winter 2022 Economic Forecast last week, and it said that inflation will be around 3% for most of this year. Of course, there are now the challenges with geopolitical tensions in Ukraine and Russia. Now all eyes are on the ECB, but Madame Lagarde, I just want to bring your attention to the fact tha…

20 Jan

2022

EN Speech

Protection of animals during transport - Protection of animals during transport (Recommendation) (debate)

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Madam President, first and foremost, may I say at the outset I did very much welcome this process with regard to the Committee of Inquiry on the Protection of Animals during Transport (ANIT) and the engagement that we had with outside bodies, NGOs, science, research and just a broader consultation within this Parliament itself. And throughout that debate I had a fundamental disagreement with many …

16 Dec

2021

EN Speech

The situation in Cuba, namely the cases of José Daniel Ferrer, Lady in White Aymara Nieto, Maykel Castillo, Luis Robles, Félix Navarro, Luis Manuel Otero, Reverend Lorenzo Rosales Fajardo, Andy Dunier García and Yunior García Aguilera

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Mr President, I utterly condemn the attacks on freedom of expression, arbitrary imprisonment, detaining political opponents, forced labour camps, censorship and political re-education of minorities by the Cuban regime. Be it a totalitarian regime on the left or on the right, we must condemn in equal measure both, because both are fundamentally anathema to what this House stands for. I am surprised…

13 Dec

2021

EN Speech

One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

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Madam President, I speak on two types of inflation. Firstly, the construction materials inflation, which obviously is going to put huge pressure on governments and on the European Union, too, in terms of value for money for the Next Generation recovery fund. And the difficulties that governments will have in providing public housing for citizens and for those that want to afford or can afford to b…

24 Nov

2021

EN Speech

A European Action Plan Against Rare Diseases (debate)

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Madam President, we need to have a uniform new-born screening programme. We need to ensure there’s early diagnosis. We have too many mis-diagnoses, non-diagnosis, delayed diagnosis of children when they are born in the area of rare diseases. And we also have to accept that we have to have collaboration between Member States in terms of research, innovation, specialist services, medical personnel i…

22 Nov

2021

EN Speech

One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

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Madam President, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the economic measures that were taken by the European Union, the European Central Bank and the European Investment Bank, and national governments, did stave off a crisis. But there’s no doubt we are now in another wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, and this is going to put huge pressure on public finances across the European Union in Member States…

10 Nov

2021

EN Speech

One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

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Mr President, any review of the common fisheries policy has to have two words at its heart in terms of its assessment of what we must do into the future: sustainability and fairness. Sustainability of fishing stocks, but also sustainability of fishing coastal communities, and fairness and burden-sharing have to be at the heart of the decisions that we will make between now and the end of next year…

10 Nov

2021

EN Speech

An intellectual property action plan to support the EU’s recovery and resilience (short presentation)

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Mr President, the protection of intellectual property rights is of fundamental importance in ensuring that there’s creativity and innovation and investment in the whole area of research. Of course, the collaboration across the European Union is significant and what we need to do is when you are protecting intellectual property rights that that percolates down into the universities, and that there …

10 Nov

2021

EN Speech

European Partnership on Metrology (debate)

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Mr President, on this report, there’s no doubt we need to ensure there is strong collaboration across the European Union in the area of metrology itself. We have to ensure that, when we are involved in this, that we use the best scientific evidence available to us and that can only be brought about if we quantify it and measure it and have the proper statistics available for us, in terms of policy…

10 Nov

2021

EN Speech

The European Education Area: a shared holistic approach (debate)

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Mr President, I welcome the opportunity to speak on this report. I think it’s important that we do have a collective embracement of education across the continent. We have to accept that we need to ensure we have recognition of skills – both in terms of learning but also in terms of teaching. For too long we’ve had a disparate approach to education. I also accept that the education process is part…

10 Nov

2021

EN Speech

Disclosure of income tax information by certain undertakings and branches (debate)

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Madam President, I welcome the recent agreement by the OECD in terms of the G20 and the140 countries that subscribed to that agreement. I also want to point out that there is a clear obligation to ensure that we have tax transparency, but sometimes tax competitiveness gets caught up in the same debate around tax transparency and Ireland would have been a country that is very competitive in terms o…

10 Nov

2021

EN Speech

Strengthening democracy, media freedom and pluralism in the EU (debate)

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Madam President, I welcome the report. Fundamental rights and the rule of law are cornerstones of the European Union, so we have to ensure that we have freedom for the individual and freedom of the press, the media and the judiciary. That is clearly a fundamental cornerstone of any modern, vibrant democracy that holds power to account. The day that we turn our back on journalism and the integrity,…

20 Oct

2021

EN Speech

Global Tax Agreements to be endorsed at the G20 Summit in Rome, 30th/31st of October (continuation of debate)

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Mr President, I welcome the agreement that the OECD finally got all Member States to agree on, but there’s no doubt it was a long and tortuous road, and it did take some time. From my perspective, as an MEP from Ireland, we had genuine concerns, and it does go to show the importance of unanimity in terms of tax issues when it comes to the European Union. The fact of the matter is, Ireland did have…

20 Oct

2021

EN Speech

Increased efforts to fight money laundering (debate)

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Mr President, I welcome the announcement of the package by the Commission, and I want to commend Commissioner McGuinness on this. Just to say at the outset, the Pandora leaks shows quite clearly that money laundering is not always by some nefarious groups; it is very often by respected politicians across the globe. I think that is an indication of why we are so slow – not just in Europe but across…