Address to Seanad Éireann by Members of the European Parliament Seanad Éireann — 2026-09-23 ============================================================ Lorraine Clifford-Lee (FF), Nominated by the Taoiseach Our guests are all very welcome. I am delighted to see the three MEPs before us but it is a pity that their fourth colleague is not here today. The work that they do is very important. Dublin is of strategic importance to this country. We are very mindful of the work our MEPs are doing in Europe and we commend them for working together for the betterment of Dublin and Ireland. There has been a lot of talk about security, border security and fuel security. I am very concerned about food security and supporting our fruit and vegetable growers. Irish horticulture is competing with imported produce, much of which comes from outside of the EU, while Irish growers face rising costs in relation to energy, labour, land, compliance and regulation. We need to support our growers for our own food security. Given that the CAP negotiations are ongoing and entering a critical phase, it is timely that we are here to discuss this particular issue. If Europe wants Irish growers to meet higher environmental, labour and production standards, will the next CAP provide sufficient investment to support them and allow them to remain competitive with imported produce? Can our MEPs use their position with the European Parliament to strongly advocate for growers in Fingal who produce 47% of Ireland's field vegetables, 37% of protected fruit, vegetable and nursery plants, and 14.5% of the national potato output? Our MEPs will agree that the growers of north County Dublin contribute significantly to the food security of this country. If Europe is serious about food security, how do we reconcile that with the economic pressures currently faced by Irish growers? What happens to European food security when farms in productive areas, like north County Dublin, become economically unviable? Has serious thought been given by the EU to productive agricultural land and whether this should be treated as a strategic food security asset? Should there be a stronger European food security test before productive agricultural land is lost to competing land uses? This is particularly relevant in Fingal due to the housing pressures of Dublin and the pressures farmers come under to give up productive farming land in favour of housing. We need housing but we also need our food security. Farming is not often seen as an issue for Dublin-based politicians but as I have outlined, we have a significant agricultural industry in Dublin and I appeal to the MEPs not to forget about the farmers of Dublin. I note and congratulate the 2026 young farmer of the year, Shane Halpin, from Lusk, County Dublin. He is the first Dublin farmer to win this award. It is a testament to his work but also to the vibrant and innovative horticulture sector in north county Dublin. I would also like to touch on Irish language issues. Nobody has mentioned them. We have the largest number of Irish speakers in the country in Dublin so I appeal to all three MEPs to keep that to the forefront of their work in Europe. It is very important to this country. The European institutions do not have the necessary linguistic infrastructure to provide that full equality to the Irish language in the European institutions and those of us who are Irish language speakers are very aware of the pressures on minority languages. Since January 2025, Irish has been an official language of the EU but we still have a road to go in relation to full equality. I appeal to the MEPs to provide the supports, and investment, for Irish-based people to train as linguists to support the equality of the Irish language in the European Union. I thank the MEPs for all the work they do. --- 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