EU Summits
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-27
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Richard Boyd Barrett (PBP), Dún Laoghaire

The European Court of Justice nullified a trade agreement between the EU and Western Sahara. The African Union recognises Western Sahara as a place that is sovereign and should have self-determination but it is occupied by Morocco. The European Commission essentially refuses to accept international law and respect the right of self-determination of the Western Saharan people because it is engaged, with Morocco, in plundering the rare earth minerals, such as cobalt, and the fish resources of the occupied people of Western Sahara. They are now trying to get around the European Court of Justice's ruling on this, which was in favour of the occupied Western Sahrawis, by talking about autonomy. This has nothing to do with what international law states, which the Taoiseach said he supports, which is about the right to self-determination of an occupied people and, indeed, the right of an occupied people not to be occupied by Morocco or for the European Union to plunder their resources with the Moroccan regime.
Ryanair has also started to fly into Dakhla in occupied Western Sahara, despite the protests of the representatives of the Western Sahrawi people and the anger of the people who are occupied. Will the Taoiseach reaffirm his support, when the right to self-determination of the people of Western Sahara is being undermined by the European Union? Will the Taoiseach condemn what the European Commission is doing and indicate his support for the right to self-determination of the Western Sahrawi people, for an end to their occupation and an end to Ryanair flights into occupied territory?

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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/dail/2026-01-27/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:01+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-27