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Democracy
Make the EU more democratic and hold the decision makers accountable. About 80% of our laws originate in Brussels. We need to be kept informed about these laws before they are agreed. Regardless of whether they are good or bad, we have a right to know - we are paying for them and it’s our lives that are affected by them. A voice independent of the Government and political establishment will ensure that.
Workers Rights
The Lisbon Treaty debate highlighted the threat to our hard fought for employment rights. We must work to protect these rights from the impact of the European Court of Justice Rulings. This court is not Human Rights based; commercial market interests take priority. Irish workers are now in daily competition with foreign workers and all are being exploited under the guise of the economic crisis - lower standards, lower wages and no job security - so that big business can continue to cream off the profits.
Environment
Ireland’s compliance with EU environmental laws is more important than ever. With a number of EU legal cases pending, we still have some way to go to catch up with other member states. In particular the Habitats and Environmental Impact Assessment directives need to be fully complied with. My ten years experience (1994 – 2004) in the European Parliament’s Environment Committee will be invaluable in helping to achieve this goal. We need a strong voice independent of Government to push for full enforcement. Click here for further information on the europa website.
Militarization & Neutrality
For many years peace and neutrality groups such as the Peace and Neutrality Alliance - PANA have been highlighting the fact that he EU is becoming more militarised. But the political establishment has belittled our efforts and claimed we were alarmists, even though there can be no denying the fact that this is exactly what is happening. Ireland has supported this militarised direction of the EU and is involved in EU Rapid Reaction Forces, EU Battle Groups and EU Arms Agencies (EDA). All these have been set up at the behest of the pro-military lobbyists and arms manufactures. Even if people agree with this development, we still need a strong voice to speak out and tell us what is going on.
Powerful Lobbyists
Unknown to most people, huge amounts of EU legislation gets drafted and fine-tuned by literally thousands of unknown and hardly accountable expert groups, advisory committees and working groups. Even those who make it their business to keep track of EU decision-making processes find it impossible to know exactly what is going on and who is involved. Well-funded lobbyists have huge influence behind the scenes. We need an independent voice to push for a register of lobbyists at both EU and national level.
EU Subsidies
EU subsidies should go to those who need them most and not to big multinationals or wealthy landowners. Last year alone Ireland’s Greencore Group received over €8 million and the former Kerry Group received €5 million. Even some sitting TDs in Dail Eireann received subsidies to the tune of €250,000. Subsidies are supposed to help the less well off, not those at the top. It is time to change this system. We need a voice to speak for those most in need.
Animal Welfare
The EU has introduced some good laws on animal protection. I am one of the few Irish politicians to support this issue. If elected I would be a valuable source of help and support for groups campaigning on the issue of animal welfare.
Lisbon Treaty
For more information on the Lisbon Treaty please click here to download "A review of the provision of the Lisbon Treaty" by the People's Movement. It briefly describes the undemocratic process surrounding the creation of the Treaty, before going though the content of the Treaty. The review includes issues such as; the increase in power given by the treaty to the unelected Commission; the self-amending nature of the treaty which means that there would no longer be any need for referenda; issues surrounding European defence policy; and much more.
Genetically Modified Organisms
, Food and Farming
I have always been a supporter of plans to make this island a GM-free zone. But we need to work fast, as the current Government has done little or nothing and failed to implement the key policies necessary.
Ireland has the capacity to provide the safest, highest quality food in Europe. Instead of leveraging this competitive advantage, our current government has encouraged our farming community to compete in a race to the bottom that we can never win, against cheap mass-produced foreign low quality food exporters. Because this industrial agribusiness farming model is based on depleting supplies of fossil fuel for its chemical fertilisers and pesticides, it is literally unsustainable.
I therefore support the development of sustainable, organic and agro-ecological farming methods, including the plan to protect the island of Ireland as a GMO-free zone - i.e. strictly off-limits to any environmental release of live genetically modified organisms (GMOs) including seeds, crops, fish, livestock etc., whose health, environmental and economic dangers are widely documented and which are impossible to contain after their release. For more information see: www.gmfreeireland.org
As part of Ireland’s strategy for quality food production, food security and food sovereignty, I also encourage farmers and food producers to implement a voluntary phase out of GM animal feed, so that they can retain access to - and compete in - the high value European food markets (which increasingly refuse meat, poultry and dairy produce from livestock fed on GM fodder).
We need to work fast because our current Government has failed to implement the GM-free policy it declared in June 2007. The Fianna Fáil / Green Party Government:
• Failed to inform stakeholders about the eco-social benefits of keeping this island off-limits to GM crops;
• Failed to negotiate its promised GM-free island policy agreement with the Northern Ireland Assembly and the European Commission;
• Failed to implement a national ban on GM crops, or even to ban Monsanto’s patented GM maize (as has been done in Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Luxembourg and Switzerland, and de facto in two other EU member states);
• Failed to prohibit the importation of live GM seeds such as GM oilseed rape (which - although not approved for EU cultivation - can be legally imported for food, feed, and processing into cooking oil or agrofuel), to prevent their subsequent spillage and irreversible contamination of related wild species and food crops;
• Failed to draft regulations for the so-called “co-existence” of GM crops with conventional and organic farming, which can be made sufficiently strict so as to prevent any release of GM crops (as in Scotland and Wales);
• Failed to recognise over 1,000 existing local GMO-free zones, including those declared by 19 local authorities on both sides of the border, along with National Parks and Natura 2000 sites whose biodiversity must be protected from GM contamination;
• Failed to transpose the EU Liability Directive, which enforces the Polluter Pays principle for those responsible for contaminating farmland and the food chain with GMOs;
• Failed to ratify the Aarhus Convention, which enables stakeholders to participate in policy making on GM food and farming issues, to access relevant information held by government agencies and private companies, and to seek redress in the event of damage;
• Failed to set up a GM-free quality label and certification scheme for meat, poultry and dairy produce created without the use of GM animal feed, thus putting our farmers and food producers at a competitive disadvantage against other EU member states which already have such GM-free labels in place;
• Failed to require mandatory labeling of GM food sold in pubs, restaurants and hotels (as in the UK);
• Continues to allow meat, poultry and dairy produce from livestock fed on GM animal feedstuffs to be sold without a GM label to inform consumers;
• Continues to tolerate the animal feed importers’ failure to provide GM-free feedstuffs required for our beef, dairy, pork and poultry sectors to compete in the quality export markets;
• Continues to provide public funding for GM research and industry propaganda events;
• Continues to grant patents on GM agricultural seeds, thus enabling giant agri-biotech corporations like Monsanto to file future patent infringement lawsuits against contaminated Irish farmers, and seize ownership of their seeds and crops;
• Is rapidly destroying what’s left of Ireland’s reputation as Ireland - the food island, since Europe’s leading governments, regions, food brands, food retailers and consumers increasingly reject GM food and farming.
If elected to the European Parliament, I will work with like-minded MEPs to lobby the European Parliament, Commission and EU Member States to make the approval process for GMOs transparent and democratic. I will also lobby for the Parliament, Commission and Member States to recognise the island of Ireland as the most secure GMO-free biosafety reserve for the future of European agriculture. The reasons for this are obvious: we are (i) geographically isolated, (ii) most upwind from potential contamination by wind-borne GM pollen and seed dispersal from other countries, (iii) have the lowest level of previous GM exposure in the EU, (iv) may be the least affected by climate change, and (v) therefore provide the most secure location to conserve, research and develop Europe’s agricultural seed supplies in the event of widespread GM contamination disasters.
Keeping Ireland GM-free will also provide our food, farming and tourist sectors with the most credible safe GM-free food brand in Europe: a unique selling point and sustainable competitive advantage for future generations.
U.S. and Shannon
Peace neutrality and disarmament have always been very important issues for me, and together with so many other campaigner I have been to the fore in highlighting and campaigning against Irish facilities at Shannon being given to the U.S. military’s to carry out its illegal wars. Ireland, because it facilitates the U.S. military and CIA flights at Shannon, is complicit in the crimes carried out against innocent people in Iraq, Afghanistan, in the Guantánamo concentration camp and other places. The Programme for Government was a written guarantee that “rendition does not occur in this State in any form” and that the “Government will encourage and support An Garda Siochana in the investigation and enforcement” of the laws pertaining to this issue. Despite reports by Amnesty International, the UN and other human rights groups claiming Shannon is being used for Extraordinary Rendition, not one single plane has been checked since the current Programme for Government was agreed. Instead, ordinary people have been arrested for asking the Gardi to search these suspect planes. In the last government, before this new guarantee was agreed, opposition politicians were scathing of the government for their lack of action on this issue. The current leader of the Green Party and Minister for the environment put it very well when he said: “Minister McDowell and his colleague Minister Dermot Ahern have feigned anger at the damning criticism of Ireland contained in yesterday’s draft report by a European Parliament committee. They should genuinely be ashamed of their complicity in the serious breaches of human rights that have occurred as a result of Ireland’s cooperation with the CIA on their renditions programme. Report after report proves that these planes landed at Shannon with the full permission of the Irish government."
"They have also sought to cloud the issue by saying that there is no evidence of prisoners on board. If we have no direct evidence it is because the Government had no interest in finding it. Minister Ahern has pointedly rejected advice to put a system of random inspections in place. The policy coming from the Department of Foreign affairs would appear to be: 'see no evil, hear no evil.'"
Just recently Human Rights leaders and Amnesty International Ireland accused the current Government of reneging on their pledge for more vigilant checks of suspected US rendition flights at Shannon airport.
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