I start by expressing my solidarity with the protesters in Iran and condemning the brutal repression they are facing. This week has brought into sharp focus how action or inaction at EU level has a real impact on our citizens. Commitment to the European project means being an active and critical participant in it, willing to push back and push hard on trade deals, laws and regulations that impact on all of our lives. Today I will talk about how our active and critical participation as a member state of the EU could impact on Mercosur, Palestine, Ukraine and the digital space. Starting with Mercosur, with the threat of flip-flopping from the Government last week and the uncertainty about what way Ireland would vote on a trade deal that is deeply unpopular with the Irish people, I want to hear what this Government did in December, where it stood on Mercosur and how we have ended up in this situation where this deal may pass without the protections we need for our climate and farmers. Tá téip iomlán déanta ag an Rialtas seasamh suas dár bhfeirmeoirí agus dár dtimpeallacht. No one in this Chamber has been quiet about our feelings on Mercosur. It is incredible to me that we are expected to believe that the Government did everything possible to ensure there were protections in this deal and avoid it being passed by the Council when there were questions last week as to which way Ireland was even going to vote. Mercosur will be a disaster for our environment, farmers and consumers. Last November, during post-European Council statements, I raised my concerns about the Government’s lack of willingness to stand up for the things which make us proud to be Europeans. I cited Mercosur as a key issue where we were not seeing enough action from the Government in defence of those core values. I am frustrated and disappointed to have been proven right with the result last week. We are already seeing extreme weather events in this country. We are nearly one year on from Storm Éowyn. The impact of climate change is touching Irish people’s lives and it is vital that we do everything in our power to stop it. When it comes to negotiating tables, budgets and policies at EU Council level and domestically, however, I am not seeing the commitment from this Government to make it a priority. Gaza is still very much under siege. In the past two months, we have seen the ceasefire, which now seems to be an empty phrase, become deadlier and deadlier for Palestinians still in Gaza. In parallel with this, settler violence in the West Bank continues, resulting in killings, demolitions and the forceful expulsion of Palestinians from their homes and villages where they have been for generations. This is all on top of the day-to-day structural violence of the apartheid system and the illegality of the settlements. The EU has completely lost focus on the fact that the ruling of the International Court of Justice, ICJ, made clear that it is not just extremist settlers who are the problem. Rather, all Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal and we have a legal duty not to support or trade with them. It is the Israeli state that is perpetrating the system of human rights abuses and apartheid in the West Bank, Israel and Gaza. It is the Israeli state that is in breach of the human rights clause in the EU-Israel association agreement and yet, because of a ceasefire where children and innocent civilians continue to be bombed and shot, we are refusing to suspend the agreement and continue to let Israel benefit financially. We cannot allow human rights to be traded away. What action has the Irish Government taken to progress the suspension of the EU-Israel association agreement and ensure full compliance with international law at EU level? Similarly, Russia’s brutal war of aggression continues in Ukraine and we continue to see loss of life and lives made unliveable for our European brothers and sisters. In respect of the upcoming digital omnibus, I want to explore how European-level regulation of the online space is being handled within our membership of the EU. The last few weeks have proven that regulation of the digital space is more vital than ever. As a result of things going wrong and the public being angry and afraid, we have seen a rush to finally codify the AI Act into Irish law ahead of schedule. I am glad to see that but the elephant in the room is that there is no point bringing the AI Act into operation only to have it immediately gutted alongside GDPR as part of the digital omnibus. We are the lead regulator for a slew of big tech companies headquartered in Dublin. We need to show that Ireland is up to the task and that the safety and protection of our citizens do not have a price tag and will not be traded away to big tech for corporation tax receipts. The simplification agenda has so far proven to not be about making rules simpler to comply with but, rather, removing them entirely for whole sectors. We have already seen proof of that with the corporate sustainability due diligence directive, CSDDD. Instead of supporting businesses in compliance, we are creating a more complex web of who these rules do and do not apply to. This is not based on the protections of our rights and preserving the integrity of what little protection people have but on how the rights of citizens are interfering with the bottom lines of businesses. We cannot put a price tag on the safety of people online or the protection of our children and communities but that is exactly what the digital omnibus, as proposed by the Commission, aims to do. I want to understand what Ireland is going to do to push back on that digital omnibus.

Sentiment score: -0.07