23/06/2022 | 15:43:20 Thank you, Mister President. Earlier this year, Ireland commemorated 100 years since the establishment of our independent state. The course of our independence was not without difficulty because of the partition of our country, division between north and south, Catholics and Protestants, unionists and nationalists. The Good Friday Agreement, negotiated by brave men and women in 1998, marked the end of three decades of bloody violence and was, and is, a blueprint for building a new future on... 21/06/2022 | 16:23:34 Thank you, Mister President. You are very welcome, Minister COVENEY. As you know, this is Pride Month. It has been 53 years since the start of the modern LGBT rights movement on the streets of New York. Much has changed since then but sadly not enough. There are many within the LGBTI community in Europe who are isolated, harassed, stigmatised and bullied because of their sexual identity. Increasingly, we are seeing a rise in homophobia, transphobia, and violence against the LGBTI community... 21/06/2022 | 12:33:56 Dear President, and thank you to our distinguished panel for your strong commitments to democracy and of course for your inspirational words in this chamber. We come across very many important challenges and issues, and they always feature highly in our agenda, but I think today's debate is the most important one. And we always have to remember that alone we cannot fix the challenges, but we have the power of the collective. Minister COVENEY spoke about the meaning of fáilte. Well I'm going... 20/06/2022 | 15:25:06 Thank you, Madam Chair, and on behalf of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, I want to thank the rapporteur for the work that he has done in producing this report. Our countries have become more diverse in recent decades, and this should be seen as a strength, but sadly it's seen as a threat by many and because of this threat that they perceive they openly engage in racism and discrimination. Hate speech is rife and it permeates public communication, including political... 27/04/2022 | 18:39:43 Thank you, Madam President. My colleague has outlined about the Criminal Assets Bureau that we have in Ireland, which has been very successful since it was started in 1996. There's no doubt that organised criminals are motivated by financial gain and that criminal entrepreneurs can generate vast profits. Essentially, these people are enriching themselves at society's expense. Particularly when it comes to the area of drugs. And the work of the Bureau is critical in terms of targeting those... 27/04/2022 | 16:46:46 Thank you very much. There is no doubt that the world changed on the 24th of February. This Assembly acted quickly and correctly in terms of making the unanimous decision that Russia should not be a member of the Council of Europe, in terms of them having broken every rule in the book about human rights, democracy, and the rule of law. My own country has shown great leadership. My colleagues, Senator Timmy Dooley, and Member of the European Parliament, Billy Kelleher, have both visited the... 26/04/2022 | 17:08:26 Thank you very much, Mister Vice-President. Tonight we will have the presentation of the Council of Europe Museum Prize to the Nano Nagle Place in Cork. Very central to the work that Nano Nagle did 250 years ago was that essence of dignity within every human person. I think that that is central to the debate that we're having here this evening. I'd really like to thank the rapporteur for her work. It is an excellent document, and of course, I support all of the recommendations that are made... 25/04/2022 | 18:22:39 Thank you very much, Chair. I, firstly, would like to thank the rapporteur for the absolutely excellent work, for the detail that he has gone into and for the very strong recommendations that he has made. There is absolutely no doubt that children are spending a considerable amount of time on the internet and many may be exposed to content that simply is not suitable for them to see, such as pornographic material, which initially can be very extremely damaging and traumatising for them to see... 15/03/2022 | 17:13:29 I'm here, Mister Chair. Thank you. The right to live a peaceful existence is the most fundamental and the most basic human right of all. It is one that rings true in every single one of our own countries. Indeed, in my own country of Ireland we have had our own conflict and have learned many lessons from it. We've had the opportunity over the last two days to listen to the heartbreaking and very powerful testimonies from Mariia, from Yuliya, from Narisia, from Zhenya, from Licia. The stories... 27/01/2022 | 17:46:25 Could I thank once again the co-rapporteurs of this report. Ms Boriana ÅBERG gave us her summation on behalf of herself and Mr Kimmo KILJUNEN. They have done excellent work – very detailed work indeed in relation to Armenia. There is no doubt that Armenia has made very large progress in its democratic development since 2018. It had, during that time, a series of events which have exerted a very strong influence on the functioning of its institutions. I think it is important that, again, that...