Visit of Austrian Delegation
Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-19
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Mark Daly (CC), Administrative Panel

I wish to welcome the members from the Federal Council of Austria. The President is here with us today, Mr. Markus Stotter. He is most welcome. It was great to meet him earlier. The Vice Presidents of the Federal Council of Austria, Mr. Daniel Schmid and Ms Christine Schwarz-Fuchs, are here as well along with members of the council and, of course, the ambassador, who has been here previously when we marked Austria's national day. I welcome them. We had a great engagement with them earlier in relation to artificial intelligence and Ireland's forthcoming leadership of the European Union. The issue of artificial intelligence, which affects us all, is something that will be central to our debates within the Presidency. We also discussed the two themes that we had selected as a country. One is agriculture and the other is the Good Friday Agreement, the lessons that others can learn from Ireland's peace process, how we can tackle the ongoing issues that still prevail in Northern Ireland regarding paramilitaries, radicalisation, funding of organisations like the dissident groups and paramilitaries, and the lessons we can learn from one another in that regard. Our friends from Austria are most welcome here to Seanad Éireann today and I thank them for being here.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-05-19/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:57+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-19