What Barry spoke about.

13 Feb

2023

EN Speech

EU response to the humanitarian situation following the earthquake in Türkiye and Syria (debate)

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Madam President, I also want to express my condolences to the people of Syria and Türkiye. I have to take issue with the MEPs who have characterised the slow response as being attributed to the sanctions. Repeating the Assad narrative, effectively. Yes, there has been a slow response, yes, we need to have a debate about sanctions, but the two issues are not connected. If there is a slow response, …

1 Feb

2023

EN Speech

Situation in Afghanistan (debate)

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Madam President, Commissioner, colleagues, I spoke in the January plenary imploring NGOs to stay the course and to fight the ban on female staff working in NGOs in Afghanistan. NGOs were right to suspend programmes, and in many cases, of course, they had no choice. Now there is some progress, and I commend Martin Griffiths and Amina Mohammed of the UN for taking the time to visit Afghanistan. Clea…

19 Jan

2023

EN Speech

The Global Gateway Initiative (debate)

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Mr President, I just want to make one point. Many of the speakers this morning have characterised this initiative as a foreign policy instrument, but it is based on the use of funds that are intended for development policy. And I think that’s the big misunderstanding here. This is based on EFSD+ and the use of NDICI Global Europe funding, over which there are very clear regulatory controls, superv…

19 Jan

2023

EN Speech

The Global Gateway Initiative (debate)

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Mr President, more than a year has passed since its announcement, and no one is really sure what the real purpose of Global Gateway is. Is it an attempt to rival Belt and Road? Is it a development cooperation initiative, as many insist it is, or is it simply an investment strategy for European business? Perhaps it’s none of those things. Perhaps it’s all of those things. We should be brave enough …

18 Jan

2023

EN Speech

Criminalisation of humanitarian assistance, including search and rescue (debate)

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Mr President, Commissioner and colleagues, one of the central arguments, I think, that’s been ventilated by the ECR and ID is that search and rescue carried out by NGOs is a pull factor for irregular population movement, and this is sadly also repeated by Frontex, who say that this has been done unintentionally. However, research has been done which demonstrates this is not true, based on data goi…

16 Jan

2023

EN Speech

One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

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Mr President, I want to take this opportunity to raise the very tragic decision by the Taliban to ban female staff from working for local and international NGOs in Afghanistan. This is the decision taken on 24 December. It has had obviously tragic consequences, especially for female staff who were the only breadwinners in their households. It’s had very ridiculous consequences; for example, men gi…

14 Dec

2022

EN Speech

Defending democracy from foreign interference (debate)

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Mr President, Commissioner, I just wish to make one point. Freedom House has pointed out that democracy has been in decline across the world for the last 17 years consecutively. And it doesn’t happen dramatically, like we saw last Friday; it happens incrementally. We’ve seen over the last month – it’s easy to forget – we had a sophisticated cyberattack on this Parliament just last month. It’s easy…

12 Dec

2022

EN Speech

One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

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Madam President, since the European Parliament issued its report on Pegasus last month, many people are stunned at the depth of the scandal. Since then, there have been two further reports on Predator software, published by Lighthouse Reports and the New York Times. Most Irish people were shocked to learn that an Irish holding company, Thalestris, was responsible for surveillance spyware used agai…

12 Dec

2022

EN Speech

Outcome of COP27 (debate)

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Madam President, Commissioner, colleagues, I listened to your speech and I was struck by how you characterised the achievement of loss and damage. And it is an enormous achievement because one felt immediately afterwards that it wasn’t presented in that way by the Commission, that somehow or another the G77 position was challenged and maybe there was a better way to do it than loss and damage. And…

23 Nov

2022

EN Speech

The future European Financial Architecture for Development (debate)

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Mr President, I think one of the major problems in this space is that almost nobody in international development understands finance, and very few people in international finance understand development. So there’s a major knowledge gap, there’s a cultural gap, I would say. And we have to work very hard to address the scepticism. I think people have mentioned already the European Court of Auditors’…

22 Nov

2022

EN Speech

Situation in Libya (debate)

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Madam President, Commissioner, colleagues, the previous EU policy on search and rescue attracted criticism for incentivising human trafficking. Unfortunately, the current EU policy on search and rescue promotes torture in captivity. One injustice has replaced another, and the stories that are emerging from reception centres in Libya are truly chilling – so much so that the United Nations fact—find…

22 Nov

2022

EN Speech

Question Time (VPC/HR) - The impact on third countries of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine in relation to the “Black Sea Grain Initiative” agreement

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Just for clarification, the memorandum of understanding is between the United Nations and the Russian Federation, and it is to allow for the exports of Russian fertiliser and food. And it’s obviously really important for the importing countries, particularly the most food insecure. So I just wanted to know if you could brief the Parliament on the operation of this MOU, particularly whether or not …

22 Nov

2022

EN Speech

Question Time (VPC/HR) - The impact on third countries of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine in relation to the “Black Sea Grain Initiative” agreement

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Mr President, Vice—President Borrell, last week I launched the Global Hunger Index with Welthungerhilfe, Concern Worldwide and ACT Alliance. It was the 2022 index, and naturally it was very negative. It was based to a large extent on data from 2021, before Russia’s war of aggression, and naturally the most insecure countries are the most reliant on Ukrainian and Russian imports and there is an ant…

22 Nov

2022

EN Speech

Gender balance among non-executive directors of companies listed on stock exchanges (debate)

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Madam President, Commissioner, this is a landmark directive and it’s very welcome. And as we’ve heard many times, there is vast research and evidence which demonstrates the economic value of increasing representation on boards. In Ireland we have made great progress over the last very short period of time. Irish PLCs already have 32% female representation on boards. Ireland also leads the way with…

21 Nov

2022

EN Speech

Situation of human rights in the context of the FIFA world cup in Qatar (debate)

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Madam President, Commissioner, I just want to pay tribute today to the footballers of the Iran national team, which showed incredible courage to stand up to their regime today in the face of very, very grave danger when they return to their countries. It stood in stark contrast to the English team, which refused to wear a simple armband. While they might have lost on the field today, a very profou…

9 Nov

2022

EN Speech

One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

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Mr President, I want to address the issue of the recently announced peace deal in northern Ethiopia. While it was announced seven days ago, there is still no humanitarian access to Tigray. The question I want to raise is impunity. Many experts have given evidence that genocide has taken place in Tigray. The crimes committed by the Ethiopian National Defence Forces amount to genocide – an attempt t…

9 Nov

2022

EN Speech

Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (debate)

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Madam President, Commissioner and Rapporteur Durand, congratulations on your work. I would agree with Mr Biedroń and Ms Wolters that sustainability goes beyond merely green issues and environmental issues. We talk about tackling greenwashing, but we could be talking about tackling ESG—washing. Whatever we call it, what it means is companies talking a good game and failing to deliver. At best, this…

19 Oct

2022

EN Speech

Global food security as follow-up to the G20 Agriculture Ministers meeting (debate)

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Mr President, Commissioner, in the last global food security crisis, in 2008, 40 countries experienced civil unrest directly as a result. So when it comes to global food security, we as a Parliament have to ask ourselves one question. Should the European Union do all it can to ensure that people have physical and economic access to safe food? And yet the humanitarian financing gap, the difference …

19 Oct

2022

EN Speech

Outcome of the first meeting of the European Political Community (debate)

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Madam President, Commissioner, I very much welcome the European Political Community (EPC), not least as a way to re—engage with the United Kingdom. The new Prime Minister has made some fairly poor decisions in the last few weeks, but this was a good one – to attend the EPC with immediate benefits for the UK, including hosting an EPC meeting next year or the year after, re—joining PESCO on military…

18 Oct

2022

EN Speech

General budget of the European Union for the financial year 2023 - all sections (debate)

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Mr. President, Commissioner, as a member of the Development Committee, I wish to express my deep dissatisfaction at the wholly inadequate allocation of humanitarian aid funding for 2023. I do so in the context of the vast increase in humanitarian need: a further 40 million people in humanitarian need this year alone. I do so in the context of the many resolutions that we have passed expressing our…

14 Sep

2022

EN Speech

Human rights violations in the context of forced deportation of Ukrainian civilians to and forced adoption of Ukrainian children in Russia

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Madam President and Commissioner, it’s important at times like these to remind ourselves of the humanitarian principles, that is the obligation on humanitarian organisations to demonstrate independence, impartiality, humanity and neutrality, to deliver aid to the places where it’s needed most and to be completely neutral in armed conflict. The reasons for this are to ensure that aid gets to the pe…

6 Jul

2022

EN Speech

The UK government’s unilateral introduction of the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill and respect for international law (debate)

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Mr President, Vice-President Šefčovič, in the UK, the stigma against breaking international law, domestic law and constitutional norms has been significantly eroded since Boris Johnson became Prime Minister. The events of the last 24 hours demonstrate that for many, enough is enough. Freedom House reported last year that it has been sixteen consecutive years of decline in global freedom. This matt…

5 Jul

2022

EN Speech

Addressing food security in developing countries (debate)

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Mr President, Commissioner, I think we are all agreed in this House that we are approaching a food catastrophe in developing countries. And I believe that the European Union should take a ‘whatever-it-takes’ approach to the impending crisis. And this could be a turning point in our relations with Africa. We started out with President von der Leyen at the beginning of her mandate defining the partn…

5 Jul

2022

EN Speech

The EU and the defence of multilateralism (debate)

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Mr President, I want to commend the report by Mr López, particularly the references to the Sustainable Development Goals. I think the report doesn’t quite capture the degree to which the SDGs are in crisis. There is no way that we will achieve Agenda 2030. There is no way that we will be able to mobilise the finance for the SDGs or even to monitor the implementation of the SDGs when we don’t even …

5 Jul

2022

EN Speech

Objection pursuant to Rule 111(3): Amending the Taxonomy Climate Delegated Act and the Taxonomy Disclosures Delegated Act (debate)

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Mr President, I am supporting the objection. I listened carefully to the arguments on all sides and, while I am sure that gas and nuclear have a role in the transition, I cannot identify these as sustainable. I genuinely fear for the diversion of investment away from renewables. We have just completed the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, directing companies to invest in a sustainable …