Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I agree with the points made by the previous speaker on the Common Fisheries Policy. It has not just decimated fisher communities, it has also created an ecological disaster. It is totally unsustainable.

Having looked at the Amárach Research poll carried out North and South, it is quite remarkable how favourably Irish people look upon the EU. The polling results are quite positive for the EU. This is despite the major bank bail-out of €67 billion imposed on the Irish people after the banking crash of 2008. This caused a great deal of pain. Those of us who have been on the hustings with the social rights sector in particular will quickly realise that much of that low hanging fruit which that was plucked by the Government during the time of austerity has not been reinstated to help communities redevelop their youth services, community-based services, drug addiction services, etc. That is an important point to make. It is interesting to see that the majority believe that Ireland should remain in the European Union. More than half of the sample of people polled think that Europe is going in the right direction. However, it is only half. The other half think it is going in the wrong direction. I could repeat the latter phrase several times. The EU is going in the wrong direction and needs to change direction. I do not think that anyone is screaming to get us out of the European Union. Ireland's status as a member remains high in the minds of people in both the Republic and the North of Ireland. The poll also shows that most people believe it is important to vote in the European elections.

Europe was founded on the statement that it values and respects human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons to belong to minorities, and that these values are common to member states in a society in which pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality between men and women prevail. It is worth measuring that statement against the current situation.

More than half of the people in both jurisdictions say they are not satisfied with Europe's response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Approximately one third stated that they were satisfied. What we see is the level of approval for the way the EU is handling the Russian invasion of Ukraine is going downwards. More stark is the fact that there is even less approval for the EU's response to the way the Israeli-Gaza conflict, or, should I say, the war by Israel on Gaza, is being handled. Some 64% in the Republic and 72% in the North report being unsatisfied.

In the context of some of the major geopolitical crises of our time, namely the war in Ukraine, migration and the conflict in Gaza, the research highlights the challenges the EU faces in uniting Europe but also in responding to these crises properly. The dissatisfaction with the direction the EU is going in is very high on the question of Palestine. This is because the EU is backing to the hilt Israel's right to so-called self defence when we all know that what is happening is genocide, that this is involves the creation of famine and that it has given rise to butchery and slaughter. It is only getting worse. At the same time, some of Israel's biggest arms suppliers are located in Europe. If it were not steeped in hypocrisy, Europe would impose an immediate arms ban on Israel. It is, however, steeped in hypocrisy. It reeks of that hypocrisy on many fronts.

Take this House as an example. As I mentioned this morning, we have taken no action in respect of Gaza. Students down the road in Trinity College have, after five days of an occupation, forced on the college a divestment policy from its interests relating to Israel. Instead, each day we go into our offices and use Hewlett-Packard equipment. Hewlett-Packard supplies computer hardware to the Israeli army and maintains data centres for the Israeli police. It also has a contract for all of the local authorities, at least any of the ones I know. We are constantly told that procurement rules are governed by the relevant directives of the European Union. How can the Minister of State suggest that we do not have the right to pick and choose who we enter into contracts with and if it is absolutely the case that we cannot break the contract that this House and the local authorities have, using public money, with this provider of machines that visit death upon on the Palestinian people through the actions of the Israeli army?

The other aspect of hypocrisy I want to touch upon briefly relates to climate change. The last time around the European Union had it at the top of its agenda. In the context of its strategic goals for the next five years. climate does not even feature on the agenda. Yet, we know that we are hurtling towards the worst damaging period for the planet and that the Continent is heating up faster than any other part of the world. We need to address the question of the downgrading of climate change in terms of the EU's priorities. Free public transport instead of electric cars would do a great deal for the Continent. If Europe was to pursue each member state to bring in free and frequent public transport, we could really focus on trying to do something about the climate disaster we face.

I want to finish on the question of the EU migration pact. We had a debate on this last week, but what was not debated nearly enough is the breach of the statement that I read out earlier and on the basis of which the EU was founded. As stated, the latter refers to humanitarianism, equality, respect for dignity and respect for minorities. It is being breached left, right and centre by the migration pact, which will basically allow the EU to build a wall against asylum seekers, fund warlords in Libya and extend that model to other third countries, such as Egypt and Tunisia, where people are locked up and kept in detention centres. At this point in Libya, people are being bought and sold as slaves. This is how the world is going backwards under the guise of a progressive EU. Yes, we do need a change in direction.

The EU should stop operating as a cover for the sort of turbo-capitalism it does and start building a Europe that is for people and not for the profit of a tiny few. Poverty is increasing and inequality is increasing. The scandal of migration, the support for Israel, and doing nothing about Palestine is an absolute stain on the record of the EU and impacts the humanity of the people who live within it.

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