Lisa Chambers (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Ms Demetriou is most welcome. It is a pleasure to meet her and to welcome her to Seanad Éireann to address our Chamber.Her speech covered quite a lot of topics but it is clear that despite the distance between our two countries, we share many values, are on the same page on many things and are strong colleagues at European Union level. That is welcome.

I concur with her remarks when she lists the many challenges the European Union has faced and will face: the geopolitical situation, the war in Ukraine, migration, climate and the Covid pandemic. There is a lot happening, a lot has happened and there is more to come. It is important that all countries, including Cyprus and Ireland, protect our parliamentary democracies. When I hear Ms Demetriou's commitment to that, it is heartfelt and welcome. She is right when she points to what is happening in Ukraine. We can take nothing for granted. We can get comfortable in the situations we find ourselves in but democracy must be protected and it is important that we in public representative and leadership roles, like Ms Demetriou, espouse and fight for those values and make sure they are kept on the agenda.

I am happy to hear Ms Demetriou, in her role as Speaker of the Cypriot House of Representatives, focusing on gender equality, gender-based violence and the eradication of same. That is something we in Ireland and our Government are focused on. We have a new strategy on domestic and gender-based violence. We unfortunately saw, as I am sure Cyprus did, an increase in that during the worst of the pandemic. We as a country are committed to eradicating it and will do that through Government leadership. When like-minded countries work at an EU level, we can do much more together than apart.

I thank Ms Demetriou for taking the time to visit us. It is lovely to hear her remarks about the Ceann Comhairle. He is a party colleague of mine and it is clear he and Ms Demetriou are good friends. I wish her well for her meetings tomorrow and for the rest of her visit to Ireland. We hope to see her back in Ireland again.