Address to Seanad Éireann by Members of the European Parliament Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-27 ============================================================ Barry Cowen As we prepare for the Presidency of the Council, our role will not be to arrive with a national wish list, but to act as an honest broker. That does not mean lacking ambition. We should aim to advance the EU budget, strengthen competitiveness, support food security, drive sensible trade policy and reinforce Europe's strategic resilience. Perhaps more importantly, we should continue to demonstrate that the dissenter can deliver. This is the last paragraph, seriously. --- 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/2026-05-27/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:00+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-05-27