Address to Seanad Éireann by Members of the European Parliament
Seanad Éireann — 2026-02-18
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Garret Ahearn (FG), Administrative Panel

I thank all the MEPs for being here today. We have seen from the debate back and forth that although people have very different views and positions, it is extremely helpful to have all five MEPs here to be able to outline their position and views and the work they are doing to represent Ireland South. Mr. Kelleher said this is a changing world. It is absolutely changing, and the EU's position and role are so critical in that.
One particular issue is the rise of the far right and how Europe, as a Continent, manages that. If we are honest with ourselves, it is not accidental. It has been planned, it is strategic and there are people behind it, whether it is Tommy Robinson in the UK or the AfD party in Germany, particularly in eastern Germany. These are organisations that are being funded by Putin and Musk. It has been well planned and managed. The European Union has a role to play in this regard. We have very important elections across Europe this year, in Armenia, Bosnia and, obviously, Hungary. Comments made yesterday by Marco Rubio endorsing Viktor Orbán were outrageous. No state should be interfering in any election but America has given its view.
Senator Clifford Lee tried to get information on why people hold their positions. When people come here, whether we agree with them or not, it is a good opportunity for them to outline their position and, in this case, for some MEPs to outline why they abstained in a vote on Iran and voted against supporting Ukraine in a financial package. People can have different views, but this is a very good platform to outline that.

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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/seanad/2026-02-18/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:39+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-18