Post European Council Meeting: Statements
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-14
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Thomas Byrne (FF), Meath East

Two of Sinn Féin's elected representatives went in 2018 as election monitors, not as part of the OSCE or as part of the UN or the EU, but as guests of the Venezuelan Government, to monitor those elections, which were a sham. They then attended his inauguration and now Sinn Féin accuses us of double standards. We saw that Venezuelan people in Dublin certainly said what they thought of Sinn Féin. We support international law, we support the enforcement of international law and we continue to engage with the United States.
In relation to Greenland, I will have a call with my Danish counterpart tomorrow. That is an issue we will keep on the agenda. We are in full solidarity with the people of Greenland, in particular, and with the people of Denmark.
Other issues that the Taoiseach did not address today but which were discussed included European security and defence, migration, the Pact for the Mediterranean, disinformation and foreign information manipulation, and the macro-regional strategy for the Atlantic, which is a new strategy that should be developed between Ireland, France, Spain and Portugal.
On the defence issues, it is fairly clear Europe is not at war but we are not entirely at peace either. That is a fair comment that has been made. In December, the European Council condemned recent hybrid attacks against the EU and its member states. The European Council called for accelerated efforts to strengthen resilience, protect critical infrastructure, and to prevent, deter and respond to hybrid attacks in the EU. Even in the period since the last European Council meeting, we have seen further instances of damage or disruption to underseas cables in the Baltic Sea. Ireland is not immune from such threats and we take them extremely seriously. We have seen the increase in hybrid activity directed towards the EU - we have seen that in social media quite a lot - and we are actively and constructively engaging in the development of EU policies aimed at combating hybrid threats, in particular Russia's campaign of hybrid activity. This is a threat to social order and, indeed, to the economies in the European Union.
The sense of threat is felt keenly across the European Union. For many of our fellow member states, this threat is ever present. I saw this when I visited Latvia and Lithuania to meet with my EU affairs and defence counterparts. To meet their defence spending targets, some of our EU colleagues are, of their own volition, making drastic and difficult decisions to cut salaries and pensions. I want to be clear that, from my observations and discussions, they are not being driven by ideology. They are not being driven by the European Union. They are being driven by the reality that they, as individual countries, see and face themselves. Russian activity represents an attempt to divide EU member states and, in particular, to weaken our resolve on Ukraine. We fully support all the tools available to deal with these issues.
On migration, at the European Council the leaders agreed conclusions on migration. The conclusions took stock of progress in managing unplanned migration and called for intensified work to continue. Europe must address the shared challenge of unplanned migration. This can be done through collective effort by having a system of responsibility and solidarity regarding the reception and management of protection applicants. Ireland supports ongoing efforts to adopt the Pact on Migration and Asylum and we have opted in to the some of the non-Schengen measures as well as the EU asylum agency. Some of the results of that can be seen in some of the announcements that the Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan, is making.
Together with Spain, France and Portugal, Ireland asked the Commission to develop an EU macro-regional strategy for the Atlantic by June of next year with the aim of addressing common challenges in the Atlantic region such as connectivity and economic growth. There is huge potential here. It is something that I have worked on with my colleagues, particularly those in the Spanish Government.
We live at a time of significant challenge but we should not forget our strength - our European Union. There will always be setbacks and there will always be things that we do not succeed on, but the EU remains the single greatest peace project in history and a source of economic prosperity to Irish people and European citizens. Ireland has a seat at the Council table and in the Parliament. In looking ahead to our EU Presidency this year, we will continue to use that seat in the interests of Ireland and Irish people. It has been shown over many decades that Ireland working constructively in the European Union, protecting our vital national interests, is the way to economic success and progress in Ireland.
I have no doubt that the agendas of future meetings of the European Council will be substantial and of huge importance this year. I look forward to continuing engagement with Deputies in the months ahead.

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Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-14/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:30+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-14