Ireland’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union: Statements
Seanad Éireann — 2026-03-05
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Sarah O'Reilly (AON), Agricultural Panel

I thank the Minister of State for coming in today. I welcome the opportunity to make a statement on Ireland's Presidency of the Council of the European Union. I listened to the Minister of State's opening address and the plans for the EU Presidency. It was heavily focused on defence strategy, assistance for EU states, Ukraine, maritime security and hybrid threats. Of course, all of those things are important. They are typical of what politicians and policymakers want to focus on. However, I am going to focus on what EU citizens want. The original pillars are what the European citizens really want and trade is one of those. With the global economy, European trade has suffered from the effects of bigger trading countries such as India and China. We need to look at that again and be more focused on European industry and trade. Senator Lynch focused on CAP. To European citizens, particularly Irish citizens, CAP and the Common Fisheries Policy are two issues we need to focus on for our citizens. Energy is another issue. Energy costs are huge. In putting sanctions on Russian oil, the European Union and Ireland actually ended up hurting their own citizens and their own industries. Other issues we need to focus on are our freedoms and Irish unity. It will be a missed opportunity if we do not focus a good part of this on peace and Irish unity.
I will focus on health a little bit because it is something other people did not bring up. The Presidency provides Ireland with an opportunity to highlight and provide a platform for a critical health emergency that profoundly affects the lives of EU citizens. The figures on this are quite startling. Many Members would be surprised to learn that throughout Europe, more than one person dies of sepsis every minute. That is a real threat that is happening at the minute to European citizens. It is not a perceived threat. It is the threat that is happening. The upcoming EU Presidency is an opportunity for Ireland to bring awareness to this life-threatening disease. We must promote greater public awareness, strengthen early detection protocols and support better infection prevention strategies across Europe. Early detection of sepsis is key in preventing loss of life. That should be considered in the policy documents.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-03-05/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:44+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-03-05