Post-European Council Meeting: Statements Dail Éireann — 2026-07-08 ============================================================ Neale Richmond (FG), Dublin Rathdown I will make a few concluding remarks to follow on from some of the points made by the Taoiseach in his opening iteration because in his 20 minutes he did not cover them all. In regard to the items discussed at the June European Council meeting, as we just finished off on the crucial issue of European defence, it was revisited at the meeting and leaders took stock of progress on the implementation of the defence readiness roadmap. Of course, security is one of Ireland's overarching priorities and that is why we will continue to take forward the European defence readiness agenda. Deputies have rightly said, and perhaps criticised, that countries across the union are investing more in their national security and defence capabilities. Deputy O'Donoghue rightly charged that Ireland needs to do more in this regard, and we are. Even though we will retain a central policy of military neutrality, we can work with European partners to make sure security and defence are there, particularly with the Council's urgent call for efforts to strengthen resilience, enhance preparedness, protect critical infrastructure and prevent, deter and respond to hybrid attacks, bearing in mind this jurisdiction was subject to a hybrid attack on our health system not that long ago. In respect of migration and following on from the entry into force of the EU migration and asylum pact on 12 June, despite Deputy O'Flynn's charges this is something that was voted on by the democratically elected representatives of the people in Dáil Éireann. Leaders discussed the ongoing challenges presented by irregular and unplanned migration and looked at the progress on the legislative agenda calling for intensification of this work. They will have a strategic discussion on migration at their next meeting in October. Ireland is fully committed to the implementation of the pact, which will provide a consistent, fair, sustainable, humane and efficient asylum procedure and upgrade the common European asylum system. It will create an asylum service that is transparent, fair and aligned with other member states. The trade in illicit drugs orchestrated by organised crime groups poses a serious challenge to European security and the well-being, crucially, of our citizens. The June European Council meeting committed to jointly operationalising the EU drugs strategy 2026-2030 and addressed the harms caused by illicit drugs. This EU drugs strategy implementation framework provides an opportunity to address gaps identified in the evaluation of the previous strategy while also optimising the use of existing measures and tools. As chair of the horizontal working group on drugs for the next six months, Ireland is committed to progressing the implementation framework for the EU drugs strategy. The Taoiseach spoke at length about Ukraine and Deputy Lawless raised what I would classify, quite frankly, as misplaced concerns about enlargement of the European Union, bearing in mind the last time Ireland had the Presidency in 2013 it was the eve of Croatia joining the European Union. More famously, and the Leas-Cheann Comhairle was part of the Government at the time, in 2004 we hosted the day of welcomes when the European Union expanded to ten member states. For many of us that symbolised the real end - in many ways the belated end - of the Cold War when most of those countries who were former Soviet satellite states were able to embrace the European Union and liberal western democracies. Like Ukraine, Moldavia's future is in Europe. The opening of the first cluster in Moldova's accession negotiations on 15 June was warmly welcomed by leaders, as was the first EU-Moldova summit that took place on 22 June. While holding the Presidency, we will work to open all remaining clusters by the end of the Irish Presidency. Other items addressed in the June European Council conclusions included the western Balkans and Armenia, as well as efforts to help stop the spread of the Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda, as raised by Deputy Ó Laoghaire last week. The conclusions adopted at the June European Council also reaffirmed the EU's support for the institutions upholding international law. They also took note of recent EU strategies for islands and coastal communities and referred to discussions on the integrated country-specific recommendations, enabling the 2026 European semester to be concluded. We are one week into our Presidency of the Council of the European Union. Over the coming months, we will act impartially serving as an honest broker among our fellow member states to progress many files in areas that were raised here today. Our work will respond to the overall interests and needs of the union, its member states and citizens across Europe. The Government will continue to keep the House informed about progress with our Presidency programme and I really look forward to future discussions with Deputies. The Taoiseach laid out that he will be addressing COSAC next week. This is a great opportunity and as someone, like Deputy Ó Murchú, who travelled to many COSAC meetings during membership of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on European Union Affairs, I know this is where parliamentarians are given the best ability to contribute to the European Union's legislative agenda. It is crucially important that Oireachtas Members from all parties and none, and from both Houses, engage fully, not just in the Presidency today but in using it to make sure our focus on Europe and European Union affairs is a bedrock of our democratic discussion. --- 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/2026-07-08/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:07+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-07-08