Blog

Junior Chamber Ireland organise sessions called ‘Ask me anything’ with local MEPs. It was my turn last Thursday with pupils from St Louis...

I entered the EP in unusual circumstances Brexit brought me in in two senses. I ran for election because I felt that there would be a...

It was lucky that I still hadn’t rented an apartment in Brussels by the time Covid hit. I had been looking at a few places and, in the...

There are two categories of visas being granted by the Irish Government in response to the Afghan crisis. The majority are for family...

Aid agencies do some of the most dangerous work in the world for some of the most vulnerable people in the world. When the last of the...

I can’t say I had the most relaxing Christmas of all time but it was definitely interesting. I have been following the Brexit story very...

25 years on from Srebrenica, the UN’s failures in Syria demonstrate that it is unable to defend vulnerable populations and even unable to...

Our family holiday in summer 2018 was to Athens and Crete. We walked around the Acropolis on a sweltering day. I thought the heat was...

“What could possibly go wrong?” That’s what I kept saying to staff in my office as we made final preparations for the second MLA...

On Thursday morning last week, I was on Good Morning Ulster on the BBC Radio Ulster, debating with Sir Jeffrey Donaldson the latest...

The release of Richard O’Halloran generated some debate about our relationship with the People’s Republic of China. Far from being a...

The scene is my front room on a Friday watching the Late Late Show. But it was no ordinary Friday. It was the 24th of May 2019, the day...

Martyn Rady’s history of the Habsburgs is worth a read. It is a stretch but if the EU had a royal family, the Habsburgs would have been...

May I be the first to call on you to resign. These were the words texted to me by a close friend on hearing that I had been appointed...

I first ran into Richard O’Halloran when he attended one of my political fundraisers when I was a TD more than 10 years ago. This was not...

In 2015, a little boy’s body washed up on a Turkish beach. He was Aylan Kurdi, aged 3. He lay on his front with his head turned to one...

Different countries have different sensitivities; diplomacy is a lot about understanding those sensitivities. Ireland is fairly touchy...

It’s great when a plan comes together. Or as they say, what’s rare is wonderful. Last February, myself and other MEPs wrote to Maros...

Sinn Féin means ‘Ourselves Alone’ and as far as their EU policy is concerned, it does exactly what it says on the tin. The only other...

One of my duties at the European Parliament is to be ‘rapporteur’ on the EU Singapore Trade Deal. I inherited this duty from a departing...

In 1871, Otto von Bismarck had defeated Denmark, Austria and, most recently, France before overseeing the unification of a...

It was 2013 and I had just started as CEO of GOAL. I had received strong advice not to travel to Syria because of the security situation...

This week the Russian embassy in Ireland retweeted a tweet from the Russian embassy in the UK. It alleged that 80 tons of ammonia had...

Although a lot went on last week, it was a week dominated again by Brexit. Dark clouds gathered at the start of the week, as the UK...