Address to Seanad Éireann by Members of the European Parliament Seanad Éireann — 2026-02-18 ============================================================ Kathleen Funchion We basically abstained in relation to that motion. When a resolution comes before Parliament there can be an awful lot of detail in it. In some situations we would agree with a lot of the detail. Obviously, we condemn the situation and we support people's right to protest and the protestors there. However, sometimes there are details in resolutions that we do not agree with in relation to the situation. We think the EU has a role to try to make the situation better and not to try to make it worse. Some of the sanctions that were indicated in that would make the situation worse and it is not apportioning blame where it should be apportioned. Regarding the referendum on Irish unity and the costings, it is great to see people bringing that up and talking about it. It is something I would fully support. I would love to see us use the opportunity of the Presidency to be talking more about Irish unity and to have a really positive conference or an engagement to see how we could encourage that and move it on. Ultimately, I would like to see a citizens' assembly on Irish unity that would bring all sides into the discussion. This is my third time to say I wanted to mention fishing and I have not had the opportunity to do it. We definitely need to see a proper review of the Common Fisheries Policy and we also need to consider the situation with quotas. We had some discussion last week on bluefin tuna. There is the potential for a quota for that but we are not getting it at the moment. There definitely needs to be much more discussion on that. Disability came up in the first round and then again in the second round. I am a member of the Disability Intergroup. I would be happy to speak to those mentioned by Senator Clonan about some of the issues he raised. I am not sure if I will be in a position to get him before some of those groups about which he spoke but I am certainly happy to explore it and talk to him afterwards about it. There was a question on an update on countries coming into the EU. We will have to come back to the Senator on that because I am not 100% sure where that stands. My experience so far of everything in the EU is that it works slowly. If you think it will take six months, it will actually take at least 12 months. There were questions about simplification and funding from our two Kilkenny Senators, Senators Stephenson and Noonan. I am very worried that a lot of potential funds are going to be eroded for military purposes. Whenever there is talk about increased funds for military or defence, there seem to be no questions asked. There is talk of potentially changing or relaxing fiscal rules to allow that but that is not the case when it comes to other funding streams. Another really important one is our own housing situation. I know there needs to be an honest conversation about funds. Sorry, I was interrupted----- --- 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