Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chair for the opportunity to contribute on these pre-European Council statements.

The Government has an important European meeting ahead of it. I wish to raise a few points at the outset. There are certain food products in the EU that have protected designation of origin status. The blaa bread roll from the Acting Chair's constituency is one product with such status. The time has come for the Government to consider declaring Irish beef a protected designation of origin product. Across the EU, there are far fewer beef cattle being grass fed throughout the year whereas we in Ireland have a beef product, with a healthy animal that spends most of the year out on pasture eating grass. Many farmers in Ireland are moving to organic systems. I must fess up to being one of them. I have moved to a full organic system on my farm of Hereford and Shorthorn cattle. Irish beef is worlds apart from what is found in other regions. We are increasingly seeing products coming from America, Iberia and Italy that are not being fed on grass. They are inferior, less healthy and less environmentally friendly. Maybe it is time for us to take our unique Irish system of dairy and beef and look for EU designation to protect those products.

On a humanitarian front, I welcome that the EU has collectively committed €138 billion to support Ukraine as that country continues to take the brunt of Russian aggression. Who would have thought that conflict would have rumbled on for two years? It has, though, and it is important that European cohesion prevail. There are many Ukrainian refugees in my home community.

We have got to know and befriend many of them and they very much fear that Vladimir Putin has been able to withstand and weather the financial sanctions imposed on him by the European Union and the United States and that his tail is on the up again, having been coronated again a few days ago. It is unbelievable that he believes he can hold on and become President for life. He is a dictator and it is important that Europe has a front line with Ukraine whereby we support it financially and politically.

On Gaza, I echo what other speakers have said. What is happening there is abhorrent and getting worse by the day. We are seeing a state-engineered genocide and people are being forced into a famine. The United Nations stated yesterday that 50% of people in the area are already in a famine situation and the other 50% are heading in that direction very quickly. The United States is, of course, pledging aid but that does not echo true when it is also supplying the Israel Defense Forces with the most advanced and vicious weaponry that exists on this earth. It cannot, on the one hand, allow another country to use its heavy war machinery to bombard a population of innocent people and, on the other hand, be sending in aid ships. That does not ring true.

I welcome the statements made by the Taoiseach in Washington last week. It is important that Ireland holds its position in this situation. Ireland has been one of the most staunch countries in standing up for the innocent people of Gaza. Standing up for the citizenry of Gaza is different from being supportive of Hamas, which is a terror organisation. We need to separate the fact that there is a terror organisation with its claws in some of Gaza from the considerable number of innocent men, women and children who have been suffering the brunt of that for many months.

See this speech in context