Address to Seanad Éireann by Members of the European Parliament
Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-27
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Garret Ahearn (FG), Administrative Panel

On behalf of all Senators, I thank the MEPs for being here today. This was a really good initiative that was set up in the previous Seanad. It is very constructive. It is a great opportunity for us to understand what they are doing and it is a great opportunity for the MEPs to outline their priorities and what they are highlighting at a European level. There has always been a little bit of a disconnect. When someone gets elected to Europe, people often say they do not see them for four or five years. That is just the feeling on the ground. They do not know what is happening and they are a little bit disconnected from European politics. As many of the MEPs said, there are so many benefits from membership of the European Union. That is why a discussion like today's is so important in outlining those benefits.
A lot of the discussion has been about the EU Presidency. There is a huge opportunity for Ireland to prioritise issues for Ireland, whether it is CAP negotiations, fisheries or defence and security. We can play a leadership role in the continued support for Ukraine. There was a positive result in the Hungarian elections. We can continue to play a leadership role on the EU-Israel Association Agreement.
I smiled when Mr. Flanagan was talking about people who talk about the CAP but do not read the documentation. Mr. Mullooly talked about the occupied territories Bill. He clearly has not read it because it is stated about five times in the Bill that we had not availed of the recommendation from the Attorney General. It says so many times in the report - if he reads it - that the recommendation is really important in delivering a decision. We spent 30 hours at the foreign affairs committee meeting hundreds of representatives and formulated a position, but it was not based on the Attorney General's advice. We all agree that such advice is a critical part of making a decision on policy and whether it is implementable.
These sessions work really well when MEPs are here, but they only have credibility if all MEPs are here. It is important to recognise and thank them for that. We all have different views and perspectives but the MEPs are all here. It is important that I make the point on behalf of Senators - not every MEP may be aware of this - we conduct ourselves differently in this House. There are other parliaments in Europe and in the other House in this building where people conduct themselves differently and use opportunities to mislead people and to scaremonger. This is not a House where we do it. It is very disappointing. As has been said, people watching here today would be very worried about comments that were made. I find it extremely worrying that when people stand up here to highlight it, there is smiling on the other side. That is very disappointing. I ask people to reflect on that. We have a responsibility as public representatives to reflect on that. We can have our views but we should not smile at the concerns that people on this side are outlining. I thank the MEPs for the work they are doing. It is a tough job - as someone said before as an MEP. It is tough on families. We recognise that. We thank them for being here today.

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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/2026-05-27/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:00+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-27