I welcome the opportunity to again make statements post European Council. I wanted to pick up on one of the parts of our Presidency that have been outlined. The three priorities being talked about are security, values and competitiveness. I wonder why "values" is in there. For me, "values" is a separate pillar from priorities, if the Minister of State sees what I mean. Why is peace not a priority? The Government is framing it as "security". I was interested, during the launch of the Presidency, that the Minister of State's colleague, the Tánaiste, dedicated a substantial part of his speech to peace, which I really appreciated. Unfortunately, that was not the case with the Taoiseach's contribution, which barely mentioned peace. For me, this is crucial right now because the European Union was founded as a peace project and we are losing our way. We are spending more and more on the military, we are framing things as "security" and we are not focused on peace, which we do not mention it enough. If it had been mine choice, peace would have been one of those three pillars. Under "values", we have to make sure that peace remains high up there as a value. Unfortunately, it seems to be slipping from people's discourse again and again. Those priorities regarding our European values ring hollow when we refused to ban services in the occupied territories Bill yesterday, when the Taoiseach's party colleagues in the European Parliament are sitting on the fence on the sale of alumina to Russia and when this State refused to stand up for the rights of European citizens to be protected from harms caused by big business with regard to both environmental and online harms. The way this Government blames the EU for domestic refusal to take action on Gaza, saying it has to be done at European level to be effective, is a sentiment that is problematic for me. This should be a time when we are showcasing and fighting for a European Union that takes positive action, and one which defends democracy. As for the current budgetary changes, for example, the reduction in social cohesion funding and the lowering of standards, all of that feeds authoritarianism within Europe and boosts the far right, which is such a growing and powerful force across Europe. We need to be careful and aware and we need to bring this into our language. On defence spending, it is deeply concerning that in his opening comments, the Taoiseach highlighted the advancement of European military assistance as a key point for the Irish Presidency. Military aid should not be under the remit of the EU. This should be a matter for member states and, as a militarily neutral country, we should have no part in providing weapons, either directly or through the EU. Moving to Aughinish Alumina and the urgency of action required on that, I welcome that the European Parliament voted today in support of a motion to ban alumina sales to Russia. I welcome that the Minister of State's grouping, the European People's Party, EPP, backed the motion. It is disappointing that Fianna Fáil MEPs indicated they would abstain on this motion and, unfortunately, it is also being reported today by the thejournal.ie that Independent Ireland voted against those sanctions. All of that needs to be examined and called out. When it comes to doing the right thing and protecting jobs, the Government needs to be decisive and proactive. We cannot feed Russia's war machine and if we want to protect people's jobs, our Government needs to accept that fact and plan for it, not simply allow complicity. That is true of Ukraine and it is true also of Palestine. The principles and standards of international law and our values and policies should not be available to pick and choose when it suits us. On the online harms I mentioned and our responsibility as member states to protect against them, I looked at the Council website and there are announcements around the protection of girls and women online. There was also an announcement on child sexual abuse material. Meanwhile, the digital omnibus has been agreed, which essentially guts the artificial intelligence, AI, Act from within. The Minister of State's party's grouping in the European Parliament supported and championed that. We have opened up a window, through the passage of the digital omnibus, whereby high-risk systems will be allowed to be registered before we have the governance framework in place to respond to it. In regard to all of the issues we have seen this year around Grok and online harms that people are talking about on daily in these Houses, we are not putting our money where our mouth is when it comes to a European regulatory framework. Instead, the Government and its colleagues in Europe are pushing for the simplification agenda and harmonisation and always thinking about it from an industry lens, while failing to capture the bigger harms that are being wrought on society by the tech industry and the big players in these platforms. We need to get back to those values and make sure that peace and the needs of our consumers and citizens are foregrounded.

Sentiment score: 0.15

I mentioned in my earlier remarks this drift that I see the European Union has taken away from its origins as a peace project towards a defence union. There are multiple milestones - I will not revisit them all - such as appointing a defence Commissioner who openly talks about a European defence union. I really was surprised to hear the Taoiseach describe this as a priority for Ireland's holding of the Presidency, with the disbursement of EU military assistance and the facilitating of the integration of Ukraine into the European defence industrial base. That really is a departure from any kind of policy of military neutrality that we hold as a nation. I appreciate that the Minister of State personally does not support that policy of military neutrality but that, as a member of the Government, he does. How is that compatible? How and why are we prioritising such a defence-based mechanism and defence-based priority that threatens our own military neutrality? Many of us on the Opposition benches struggled with that package of aid because it could not be divided into non-lethal military aid versus arms. This is questionable and undermines our policy of military neutrality. It is something that I would like to hear more on. My second question relates to Aughinish Alumina. There were sanctions voted on today. While I appreciate and acknowledged earlier that the Minister of State's grouping voted in support of those sanctions, we are going to need to hear as a Chamber about why on earth his coalition colleague partners - I know he cannot answer but he has to answer as a Government - abstained from that vote.

Sentiment score: 0.06