Address to Seanad Éireann by Members of the European Parliament Seanad Éireann — 2026-02-18 ============================================================ Laura Harmon (LAB), Industrial and Commercial Panel Cuirim fáilte roimh na feisirí Eorpacha go dtí an Seanad inniu. Gan dabht tá tionchar mór ag polaitíocht na hEorpa ar Éirinn. Gabhaim buíochas leo as an obair atá á dhéanamh acu. It was really interesting listening to the contributions. There were a lot of themes. They included neutrality not equalling ambivalence and the importance of sovereignty for member states in the EU. There have been many attempts to undermine that sovereignty, the EU project and the principles on which the EU project was founded of democracy, equality, rule of law, promoting peace and stability. The reasons there are actors out there trying to undermine the EU is because we know the EU project works and has huge potential to be even stronger. That is really important. It is also important that we have specific MEPs for the regions too because there are so many regions within Ireland. Ireland South is unique in itself. Being from Cork myself, it is great to see our Cork MEP here today. The Labour Party is very proud of our MEP, Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, who is in the Socialist and Democrats group in the EU. He has been championing a number of issues in relation to housing, child poverty, technology and AI, as well as climate and the challenges we face in relation to that. I wish that the European Parliament had taken a stronger stance overall in relation to Palestine and had called the genocide out earlier. That will be something that stands out in history. We still have an opportunity to act in relation to that. I know many of the MEPs here have been vocal on it. Education is an example of where the European Parliament has really excelled in terms of the Erasmus programmes and collaboration between universities. I have a question on the area of disability. There are 87 million disabled people in the EU. Only half are in employment which is less than the average. Ireland is a laggard in that we are 20% behind the EU average in employment for disabled people. Do the MEPs have a view on that? There have been very mixed views from the European Union on the topic of migration. Ireland has benefited hugely from migration. There are people here bringing their skills and culture, enriching our society and propping up our health service in many instances. That is something to be celebrated and the EU needs to be stronger in promoting that message. --- 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/seanad/2026-02-18/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:39+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-02-18