Address to Seanad Éireann by Members of the European Parliament Seanad Éireann — 2026-09-23 ============================================================ Mary Fitzpatrick (FF), Industrial and Commercial Panel Go raibh maith agat, a Chathaoirligh. Cuirim fáilte roimh na MEPs. They are very welcome. It is really good to see the three of them. It is disappointing the fourth representative for Dublin is not here. It is incredibly important that we have strong relations between our national Parliament and our European Parliament. I thank the MEPs for the service they give to Dublin. It is important we have really strong, constructive representation in the European Parliament. Fianna Fáil has obviously always been a pro-EU party. We have no hesitation in saying that and we are very proud to be the party that led our country into the Union. I am somebody who grew up in the European Union. I am somebody who learnt French and German in Cabra and went on to study Italian as well. I remember going to work in Germany when I had to get a Gastarbeiter permit. I have lived the European experience and I know for my children and their generation and for future generations the European Union is incredibly important. It is incredibly important because of all of the things the MEPs have mentioned, all the great work they are undertaking, participating in and contributing to - not just for Dublin but for the 27 member states - and the strength that the EU represents on the world stage. We are a single community of 450 million people. I do not think there is a bigger single market. That brings power to address the issues the MEPs have mentioned like security, defence, stability, democracy and freedom. These are words and values that we grew up with and kind of take for granted, but we should not. We should value them and protect them and defend them to our last breaths because we are privileged people. We are incredibly privileged to live in Dublin, to live in Ireland and to be part of the EU. I really thank the MEPs for the work they are doing. There are a couple of things they mentioned that I would like to come back to. One of them is housing. It is obviously a huge issue. There is not a European city where you do not witness people who are homeless, who are without a home. If you do not have a place to call your own, one that is safe, secure and meets your needs, it is incredibly challenging to go to school, college or work and to function in society. I therefore commend the MEPs on the work they are doing at an EU level to promote and assert the right to housing. It is essential for us humans to have secure shelter. We have had a big challenge. I am very proud that house construction in Ireland is twice the EU average. I am very proud that we have a target to deliver 300,000 homes, that we are making great progress towards achieving that many homes and that we have record levels of not just affordable and private housebuilding but social housebuilding as well. The only solution to homelessness is homes and that is what social housing really addresses. There is more opportunity. It is a national competence but Ms Doherty mentioned it, I think, when she talked about the investment in and financing of housing. We see the EU as a great source of strategic financing. In the constituency I live in, a really obvious example is the urban regeneration and education project and the funding that came in for TUD in Grangegorman. The old asylum there has been transformed into a world-class campus. It is a fantastic campus. It is not just about education or culture but about people. It is a really open place. Consider the transformation that has been achieved there. It was a walled Victorian asylum where people were locked up for lifetimes and it is now a part of the city where lives begin. It is really fantastic and Europe played a part in that via the investment bank. We have another huge regeneration opportunity in the capital in the Carlton site. The State has bought that site for MetroLink and we could deliver affordable housing there. The State owns it. I thank the MEPs for being here and their engagement with us. I encourage them to continue doing that because it is really important. When the public see politicians working in a practical way, they value our democracy and they value us. --- 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/2026-09-23/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:49+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-09-23