Ciarán Mullooly: Right to Stay, Midlands Jobs and EU Duty

Go raibh maith agat, Cathaoirleach. Cathaoirleach, Seanad Éireann, it's more an honour for me to be here with you today to welcome you to this meeting. Cathaoirleach, in particular I want to say it's a great honour to be invited here today and I'm going to speak personally for a few moments, touching a few of the themes I think are relevant in terms of our presidency of Europe and I'll return to more specifics in the questions. I'm thrilled to be here with two sisters from a family of six today. Three of our family emigrated. My late sister emigrated to the United States back in the 1960s. I was just one at the time. My brother went to New York. He went to Nelly's on Fordham Road and he went to all those places the Wolltones sang about. He came back to work in Bordnemona and worked in the Midlands for a number of years. He passed away before the closure of Bordnemona, which has been referred to already as a seismic event that very much changed the nature of the Midlands. This has been a beautiful day. Anybody who knows anything about the bogs will know that in its heyday our people would have been on the bog working 20, 22 hours today and bringing home, and when I say this in Brussels they look at me as if I had 10 heads, bringing home 1,600 pounds for one week's work of 20 hours a day. It will never happen again in the Midlands of Ireland. It's been a seismic change, and though we have tried to the European Union Just Transition Fund to address this issue, we really haven't resolved the issue of finding sustainable long-term employment in the Midlands. When you drive from your part of the country to Dublin today, you pass what I call unofficial car parks. These are car parks at junctions and churches where workers meet at 5am in the morning to get into a van or a larger bus and drive to Dublin. It is true to say unemployment has not risen. It hasn't risen. They just drive to Dublin nowadays, and our communities suffer as a result. Their quality of life and indeed their families are affected by this. So the issues of unemployment and immigration, in my perspective, are as alive and as important today as they ever will be, and during the presidency I'm hoping that we will address this. In the last couple of weeks, the European Executive Vice President Fito was here talking about something coming in the autumn you're going to hear about time and time again, an initiative called the Right to Stay. The Right to Stay, from a European perspective, is a combination of the economic and political decisions that allow people to remain working in their community by their choice. We're a long way from that in this country at the moment, and I look forward to an initiative on that. I've been an MEP for 717 days. Like many entering public office, I came with great expectations. The reality I can tell you, honestly, has often been very different. But the European Parliament cannot be judged solely over a short period of time. From time to time, we must step back and ask ourselves, where are we now compared to where we were? For most people, progress is measured not just in reports or speeches, but by income, living standards, opportunity and security. So when Ireland joined the European project in 1973, I believe we were a very different country. Today, we've unquestionably improved our standard of living and expanded opportunity. Yet in this city tonight, 4,000 children will be homeless, sleeping in hotel rooms. A shameful situation, and something that the EU and our government must address at the highest level. And we've looked at, in the last 24 hours in this city, where it is possible to do so. Our housing committee visited apartments on the Richmond Road here yesterday, where thanks to a combination of Irish funding and funding from the European Investment Bank, 23 families now found a home. These are the types of initiatives I hope we will focus on again during the Presidency going forward. The European Union, of course, itself has grown enormously since Ireland joined. And indeed, in my opinion, it has largely grown for the better. Our European family is larger and more capable of contributing positively to humanity. However, I must return to another issue. It saddens me profoundly that the collective strength of the European Union, with its immense population, its economic growth, and its global influence, has failed so dramatically to protect innocent lives in the Middle East. Over 70,000 Palestinians and more than 2,000 Israelis have lost their lives. Europe should, and Europe must, do more to stop the killing. In the next six months, we are in the hot seat. I pray that our Presidency can bring more, more meaningful contribution, and more meaningful measures forward to move us. Because, believe me, one of my first actions as a new elected MEP was to raise this issue directly with President Ursula von der Leyen in Strasbourg in 2024. Article 2 is clear. Respect for human rights and democratic principles constitutes an essential element of the agreement. My position now, as in then, is straightforward. If Europe expects human rights standards from countries seeking partnerships, trade, and preferential access, those standards must be applied consistently. And yet, almost 800 days on, Europe still struggles to find the unity of purpose required to act decisively. Senators, history will judge this period harshly. Me included, sitting in the European Parliament. In the issue of agriculture, I agree with the sentence of my colleagues today. I agree we must restore our cap budget to €433 million. I agree we must not rob Peter to pay Paul. But, at the end of the day, this issue is directly related to the theme I spoke of at the beginning. The right to stay. If we cannot restore the single farm payment, if we cannot come up with a generational renewal policy that works for those leaving as well as those arriving, then we will see our parishes and our communities once again decimated going forward. Coherent, there are many other issues. I hope to return to them in the questioning stage later on. Thank you very much.