Ms Frances Fitzgerald:

Senator Murphy made a point about the individual cases where rights are being completely disregarded. An earlier question was on how much we work together. All Irish MEPs are working on those cases, both formally and informally, and trying to highlight the terrible injustices and appalling personal situations that people who have been detained unlawfully are facing.

Senator Conway's question on health is interesting. While health is not an EU competence, there is still a lot of scope for co-operation and improving health systems by action at European level. I am working with a number of groups on breast cancer, lung cancer and so on. I will take the issue of access to drugs as an example. There is a huge amount we could do across Europe as regards procurement to make sure there is better access to drugs. There is so much innovation in the drugs sector at present that that is something we are going to have to do because they are unaffordable otherwise. That is just one example. I agree with Mr. Cuffe about developing the competencies of the EU health agencies, as well as their budgets, because they can do an awful lot. We saw how much could be done with Covid. It was a slow start, as I have said already, but there was incredible support there. We have exported 50% of all the vaccines produced in the EU. People forget this. We have exported more than 700 million doses to outside the EU. There is a great deal of work being done to share the vaccines from Europe, more than anywhere else in the world.

Senator Ward spoke about the rule of law. There are a number of options possible at the moment, as he knows. One is conditionality and taking some of the funding away. The other is infringement proceedings against Poland, which I think will happen. The third is taking away voting rights and so on. I do not see that happening right now but some of the other initiatives will happen and they will be taken very seriously.

Senator Maria Byrne asked about violence against women. That went up hugely - by more than one third - during Covid, across all member states and the world. The Istanbul Convention has not been signed, much to my surprise, by seven EU member states, primarily because they feel it is some sort a Trojan horse for LGBTQI rights. That is quite extraordinary. We are going to make violence against women a crime in the EU. A directive on that will be coming through in the next year or so and that will be very important in dealing with it more effectively across the Union.

Senator Ahearn asked about the resilience fund and the role of the Parliament. We have seen a lot of activity in the Parliament in respect of this fund, more than we have ever seen from a supervisory point of view as regards funding. We have changed many of the criteria and done a lot of good work on it. I expect that that will go on right through the implementation phase. It is important that the Parliament continues with that. We are not getting great data back from the member states yet, however, and there is a bit of disappointment about that. We are going to have to push to make sure we get the information on how the money will be spent, and is being spent, and monitor it very carefully in the period ahead.

Senator McGahon asked about the energy crisis and what can be done from a European perspective. There are many recommendations coming from the Commission at the moment around energy procurement being done across Europe, which could make it more affordable and accessible. We are going to have to watch the transition in terms of what energy uses we allow because people will literally be out in the cold if we do not take a range of initiatives across Europe to make energy more affordable in the near future.