What Billy spoke about.

4 Jul

2022

GA Speech

One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

Watch

Mr President, For the first time ever, due to COVID, we are able to see the benefits of cooperation on healthcare in the EU. This unified approach, to fight COVID, has greatly improved efficiency and parity among our citizens. A European Health Union will allow us to respond together to emerging health crises, ensure medical supply, and prevent and treat diseases. I think that the alignment of dia…

4 Jul

2022

EN Speech

Women’s poverty in Europe (debate)

Watch

Madam President, I welcome the broad thrust of the report, but there’s no doubt we have a long way to go in terms of working conditions and gender pay equality. At the outset, a lot of our legislation is weak in these particular areas to defend and vindicate the rights of women, but equally in terms of access to education, access to credit, access to housing, access to health and reproductive righ…

23 Jun

2022

EN Speech

Inclusion measures within Erasmus+ 2014-2020 (A9-0158/2022 - Laurence Farreng)

Watch

Madam President, I was very proud to vote in favour of this report, and particularly the inclusion measures contained in this. The Erasmus+ programme is a wonderful programme. It does allow young people to travel, to live, to learn, to love across Europe. Many Irish people have had that beautiful benefit of being able to study abroad, and we also welcome people to Ireland from other parts of Europ…

23 Jun

2022

EN Speech

Implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Facility (A9-0171/2022 - Eider Gardiazabal Rubial, Siegfried Mureşan, Dragoş Pîslaru)

Watch

Madam President, the Recovery and Resilience Facility is a very important fund and it is there to ensure that economies can grow again and can invest in services. But we have to also be honest. We can’t have this as a bargaining chip on the fundamental principles of equality, of independence of the judiciary, independence of the media, and fundamental freedoms. Oppression of the LGBTQ community an…

23 Jun

2022

EN Speech

Draft amending budget No 3/2022: financing reception costs of people fleeing Ukraine (A9-0181/2022 - Karlo Ressler)

Watch

Madam President, I strongly supported the motion for a resolution on the draft amending budget to finance reception costs of people fleeing Ukraine. There is no doubt there are about four and a half million people who have left Ukraine, fleeing Russian military aggression in their country. I was very heartened at the response that the European Union came up with in such a short period of time, but…

23 Jun

2022

EN Speech

National vetoes to undermine the global tax deal (debate)

Watch

Mr President, I’m extremely disappointed that we were unable to implement this particular OECD agreement of 137 countries after many, many years of negotiations. My country, Ireland, had genuine concerns about the proposals and we were one of the last countries to sign up to it. But we did come to the table in a spirit of negotiation and compromise, and we did welcome and sign up, as I said, to th…

9 Jun

2022

EN Speech

The call for a Convention for the revision of the Treaties (B9-0305/2022, B9-0307/2022)

Watch

Mr President, I voted in favour of the motion for a resolution on the call for a convention for the revision of the Treaties. The reason I did is I believe we do have to have a discussion. We had the Conference on the Future of Europe – that did facilitate some form of debate, but the European Union is changing, is evolving, and we do need to assess where we are in terms of making sure that there …

9 Jun

2022

EN Speech

Illegal logging in the EU (debate)

Watch

Mr President, the European Union should move swiftly, and the Commission should move swiftly, to take infringement proceedings against countries who fail to implement the basic standards of protection in terms of forestry and illegal logging. And certainly with the technology and satellite observation and tracking systems in place, it should not be beyond the capabilities of Member States not only…

8 Jun

2022

EN Speech

Global threats to abortion rights: the possible overturn of abortion rights in the US by the Supreme Court (debate)

Watch

Madam President, criminalising abortion criminalises women and girls, it risks the lives and health of women and girls, and it ends up in backstreet abortions and bathroom abortions. Roe v. Wade was a fundamental decision of a court at a time that conferred rights on women, and we must not deny that there is a backsliding of women’s rights across many Member States in this Union as well. We have t…

7 Jun

2022

EN Speech

Article 17 of the Common Fisheries Policy Regulation (A9-0152/2022 - Caroline Roose)

Watch

Madam President, I supported this well-written report and I very much welcome it. It’s very important that we have greater transparency in how quota is allocated within a country. Of course, it is also very important that we have greater transparency to assess how quotas are allocated between countries. And we do need to insist that in a formal review of the common fisheries policy that we take in…

7 Jun

2022

EN Speech

Security in the Eastern Partnership area and the role of the common security and defence policy (debate)

Watch

Madam President, Russian aggression in Ukraine shows clearly that Russia does not want to have functioning, free democratic countries along its borders. And I hope there is a clear, unequivocal message from the Council in the next number of weeks around the candidate status for Ukraine in application to join the European Union. At the moment, Ukrainians are dying to defend their homes, their famil…

6 Jun

2022

EN Speech

One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

Watch

Madam President, the 2022 Nitrates Derogation states that farmers who wish to plough grassland can only do so between 1 March and 31 May. Reseeding is a very important component to increase grass production, but it is also very important to ensure that we comply with the farm to fork strategy and the biodiversity strategy in terms of increasing the uptake of clover planting and also multi-species …

6 Jun

2022

EN Speech

Question Time (Commission) Reducing the use of pesticides and strengthening consumer protection

Watch

So I welcome that, Commissioner, but I do believe that we actually have to have the publications of these impact assessments in advance of us actually making fundamental decisions around how we farm, how we produce food and how we make sure it’s safe, right throughout the process to the tables in homes across Europe. Because we simply cannot hope that there will be some replacements, we have to in…

6 Jun

2022

EN Speech

Question Time (Commission) Reducing the use of pesticides and strengthening consumer protection

Watch

I am just wondering, Commissioner: what impact assessments have been carried out in the Farm to Fork Strategy to ensure that we will have a sustainable food industry in the years ahead, if we are to reduce and bring forward this regulation with regard to the Sustainable Use of Pesticides Regulation, which I very much support? We do have to have the research, the innovation, around the alternatives…

6 Jun

2022

EN Speech

2021 Report on Turkey (debate)

Watch

Mr President, I wish this report could read differently, but it does indicate how Turkey has backslid in the fundamental principles of democracy. The report calls on Turkey to fully implement all judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, in line with Article 46 of the European Convention on Human Rights. It reiterates the strong condemnation and regret over Turkey’s withdrawal, by president…

18 May

2022

EN Speech

One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

Watch

Madam President, the killing of Shireen Abu Aqla on 11 May in Jenin refugee camp was reprehensible. It was an attack not just on the individual, but on the ability for journalists and the press to go about their business to inform the world. I have to say at the outset that we have to have an independent investigation, and the European Union must insist, or else we have to recalibrate our relation…

18 May

2022

EN Speech

Minimum level of taxation for multinational groups (debate)

Watch

Madam President, I very much welcome this agreement – an OECD Pillar Two agreement on minimum taxation. And bear in mind, it’s not just a European agreement: this is a global agreement. And I urge everybody now to come together to ensure that it is implemented and that there is no further deviation or prevarication. It was very difficult. My country had major concerns and reservations, but we came…

5 May

2022

EN Speech

The impact of the war against Ukraine on women (B9-0219/2022)

Watch

Madam President, I voted in favour of this report and I strongly urge the Commission, European colleagues across Europe to ensure that there’s enough supports and services put in place to accommodate the five million plus refugees that have now entered the European Union, 90% of which are women and children. We have to accept that we have not enough support in some countries to accommodate them, b…

4 May

2022

EN Speech

Discharge 2020: European Fisheries Control Agency (A9-0114/2022 - Tomáš Zdechovský)

Watch

(start of speech off mic) Mr President, I voted in favour of the discharge earlier today. However, I want to raise a few concerns with regard to Ireland. We have a common fisheries policy, but that is about the end of it in terms of being common, because many people in Ireland have major concerns, not only about how we allocate quota, how we use quota, how we burden-share, how we support coastal c…

4 May

2022

EN Speech

Discharge 2020: European Border and Coast Guard Agency (A9-0110/2022 - Tomáš Zdechovský)

Watch

Mr President, I very much welcome the Temporary Protection Directive that was introduced because of the unfolding humanitarian crisis in Ukraine, which allowed Ukrainian citizens to come into the European Union and for the European Union to do what it’s good at in terms of supporting them initially and then trying to find accommodation and providing other services. But we do have a major problem w…

4 May

2022

EN Speech

Competition policy – annual report 2021 (debate)

Watch

Mr President, competition is the heartbeat of the European single market and competition, I think, showed that we have a dynamic economy that was able to go through the most difficult periods in terms of the financial crisis, the pandemic and now the Ukrainian war. Of course, it also shows that we must have flexibility, Commissioner, in our policies around competition. And certainly the temporary …

2 May

2022

EN Speech

One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

Watch

Mr President, the Food and Agricultural Organization, a part of the United Nations, has identified the fertiliser issue as a stand-out difference between previous crises in agriculture, in 2007 and 2011. The price of fertiliser is not just an agricultural issue; it concerns the security of global food supplies. And if the European Union, as a global leader, does not take immediate action, we are g…

2 May

2022

EN Speech

A sustainable blue economy in the EU: the role of fisheries and aquaculture (short presentation)

Watch

Mr President, the Commission will report in December of this year to the Council and the Parliament with regard to the review of the Common Fisheries Policy. And certainly we need to take into account many voices in this particular debate. But the one thing for sure is, there are competing interests out there in our oceans across the globe. When you look at the context of huge industrial ships, fa…

2 May

2022

EN Speech

Reaching women's economic independence through entrepreneurship and self-employment (short presentation)

Watch

Mr President, I very much welcome this report. Looking forward, it’s very important that these two issues are addressed to ensure that women have independence and access to entrepreneurship and then self—employment. There are two key issues. That is, first, education, and also childcare. Those two key components are very often a bar to women advancing themselves and their communities. And the othe…

7 Apr

2022

EN Speech

Right to repair (B9-0175/2022)

Watch

Mr President, I strongly support this resolution on the right to repair and I am glad today that the House adopted this report and sent a strong message to the Commission. We know, of course, that there are millions and millions of tons of electrical goods discarded every year across the European Union. In Ireland alone, there are over 5 million phones in drawers, on shelves and inside garages all…