Matt CARTHY MEP

Sinn Féin MEP Matt Carthy has condemned the arrest and imprisonment of eight Catalan ministers on charges of rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds and called on the EU to intervene in the escalating crisis.

Matt Carthy aid:

“The imprisonment of democratically elected Ministers for implementing the will of the Catalan people is a stain on democracy.

“Repression and jails are not the solution to political disputes. Political dialogue and negotiation are the only options.

“The European Union must not stand idly by as the Government of a member state incarcerates elected political opponents for the ‘crime’ of implementing the democratically expressed wishes of their people.”

Sinn Féin MEP Matt Carthy, has said he is disappointed at the failure of Fine Gael to heed warning signs over new Free Trade Agreements.

He was speaking after Fine Gael MEPs supported opening negotiations with Australia and New Zealand. Carthy said that Fine Gael MEPs had once again sold out Irish farmers.

He stated:

“Back in 2011 an official Impact Assessment on the effects of the Mercosur Free Trade Agreement predicted that the agreement would result in a decline of farm income, lower prices and farmers having to quit production.

“The Impact Assessment for the Free Trade Agreements with Australia and New Zealand makes the exact same prediction – that increased market access in agriculture will negatively affect the rural employment of small farmers in the EU.

“This is the Report that Fine Gael have just supported.

“Just two years after the end of milk quotas and barely a year since the last emergency aid package for the dairy sector had to be triggered, Fine Gael MEPs have supported opening up this sector to competition from one of the biggest global traders in dairy.

“It is time to get real about what these free trade agreements will mean for farming income. All signs from the Commission point to the intention to move towards the industrialisation of the agricultural sector.

“The protection of farming incomes and farm-gate prices are nowhere on the agenda at the moment, as farmers are still grappling with the slow movement and uncertainty with regard to Brexit negotiations.

“Bizarrely an amendment calling for any agreement to require the ratification of national parliaments was rejected with Fine Gael MEPs voting against the Dáil having a say.

“I am happy that an amendment I submitted to the Report, calling for the exclusion of sensitive sectors from negotiations was adopted by a majority of MEPs.

“I will be writing to Commissioner Hogan to ask that he defends this position.  The Irish government must also now revert from its position of chief cheerleader of the Commission’s regressive trade agenda and instead start defending Irish interests with regard to all EU trade deals”.

Sinn Féin MEP Matt Carthy has called on EirGrid to accept international best practice and accept that it does not have the necessary public acceptance to proceed with its plans for the North South Interconnector using high voltage, pylon supported power lines.

The Midlands North West representative was speaking after EirGrid sought to use communications from Elia, the Belgian electricity transmission operator, to deflect from the central lesson learned on a recent visit to Brussels to learn of the proposed ALEGrO interconnector between Belgium and Germany – that lesson being that Elia prioritise public acceptance in their criteria when deciding how to proceed with their projects while EirGrid don’t include public acceptance in their criteria at all.

Matt Carthy said:

“Last month, I hosted a delegation of stakeholders and community representatives living along the proposed route of the North-South Interconnector, where there is considerable opposition to the current proposals for pylon-supported high-voltage power lines.  Those in attendance included representatives from the North East Pylon Pressure (NEPP) group, the County Monaghan Anti Pylon committee, and Safe Electricity for Armagh & Tyrone (SEAT).

“The delegation visited the headquarters of Elia, the Belgian electricity transmission operator, which is responsible for developing the Aachen-Liege (ALEGrO) Interconnector between Belgium and Germany.  The ALEGrO project has many similarities with the North South Interconnector but with one fundamental difference – it will be entirely undergrounded.

“At the National Control Centre of Elia, the delegation learned of the criteria that Elia uses to determine the methods of providing infrastructure. These criteria are similar to what all transmission operators have in place but, at the forefront, is the principal of public acceptance.

“Public acceptance doesn’t feature on the EirGrid criteria whatsoever.  It is clear that consideration of the views of local communities is an important factor that has resulted in the ALEGrO project being undergrounded while the North South Interconnector is not.

“European Commission guidelines concerning Projects of Common Interest (PCI) indicate that projects of the size of the North South Interconnector, which cross two Member States, must carry out a process to reach public acceptance, such as stakeholder mappings and feasibility studies.

“As it is respecting the wishes of the public, Elia’s undergrounded project will be delivered at least seven years faster than EirGrid’s overhead project.  EirGrid has ignored the public acceptance criteria and dismissed the concerns and wishes of local citizens.  The company is engaged in a campaign of dismissal and demonisation against those who express an alternative view to them.  Disgracefully they are using public funds to pay for this campaign with a lavish PR strategy that includes countless hundreds of thousands of euro in sponsorship and advertising of their misleading messages.

“In recent days Eirgrid has sought to use communications from Elia, to misrepresent the delegation of Irish activists to Brussels and to mislead the public on this substantive issue of public acceptance.  EirGrid officials confirmed during the hearing in Brussels that they had contacted Elia prior to our engagement with them.  This was obviously an attempt to influence the nature and extent of our discussions.

“The reference in the recent Elia statement to a ‘Sinn Féin delegation’ suggests that the letter of ‘clarification’ was also made at the request of EirGrid.  It wasn’t a Sinn Féin delegation. It was a delegation organised by myself as a member of the European Parliament comprising of community representatives and accompanied by some Sinn Féin public representatives.  The term ‘Sinn Féin delegation’ was never used in my correspondence with Elia but, tellingly, it has been used by EirGrid representatives.

“Surely, EirGrid should have better things to be at.

“The points which Elia ‘clarified’ in its statement were not made by me in my reports of the visit.  I made it clear in all my statements that the meeting with Elia was organised under Chatham Rules and the company did not deal with the specifics of issues pertaining to the North South Interconnector.

“Rather the issues of ‘clarification’ related to reports by people who had travelled on the delegation after the event or at the hearing with the Commission in the European Parliament the day after the visit to Elia.

“It is important to state that the reference to leukaemia was in fact raised by Elia representatives, without prompting, who said that, while the link between overhead lines and leukaemia has never been proven, the company took into consideration the studies related to a link when deciding its options. In fact, the official Elia website includes the following information which is entirely consistent with the reports of delegates to Brussels:

Epidemiological studies have long suggests that there is a small – but nonetheless not insignificant – statistical correlation between long-term exposure to low-frequency magnetic fields on the high-voltage grid and an increased risk of leukaemia in children. We are talking here about exposure in the home over a long period to magnetic field strengths averaging in excess of between 0.3 and 0.4 μT.

Extensive testing of animal and cell cultures since the 1980s has been unable to confirm this theory and as such no causal link has yet been established between exposure to magnetic fields and an increased risk of leukaemia in children. However, in the absence of any explanation for the statistical link highlighted by epidemiological studies, neither has any study yet been able to rule it out.

“I am not aware that anyone reported that Elia stated that there are no barriers to underground the Irish project.  As earlier stated we made it clear in our report that Elia correctly stated that every project is different and that they didn’t deal with the technical issues regarding the North South Interconnector.

However several participants did take the inference from the Elia presentation that they considered that there is an engineering solution to any barriers that may present in any project.  Again, this is wholly consistent with what campaigners and Sinn Féin representatives have always argued.

“I want to take this opportunity to again thank Elia for their facilitation of the recent Irish delegation and of their frankness and welcome.  Their honesty in responding to questions was alien to any of us that have engagements with EirGrid.  I am sorry that EirGrid have dragged Elia into their strategy of seeking divert attention from its own failure to engage with communities.

“Rather than playing their games of deflection EirGrid should now stop spending public money on an excessive advertising campaign and instead adopt the criteria of public acceptable before proceeding any further with the North South Interconnector.

“Failing that, the Irish Government must now direct that the Interconnector is undergrounded in the knowledge that it is the only way that this project will ever be delivered.”

Midlands North West MEP, Matt Carthy, has addressed a hearing in the European Parliament on Galway 2020 and the potential of the Capital of Culture status to drive rural development in the West of Ireland.

Speaking after the event, Carthy said:

“Galway’s successful bid for the European Capital of Culture 2020 is a remarkable achievement which strengthens Galway’s position as a must-see cultural destination in Europe.

“At the hearing in the European Parliament, I communicated the structural significance of Galway and the importance of using culture as a tool for regional development.

“In my work as a member of the Transport and Tourism Committee, I am aware of the difficulties in encouraging tourism to peripheral regions.  However, Galway has established itself as a city spilling over with Irish arts, language, education and heritage.

“Surrounding Galway City lies a diverse rural hinterland which adds to its cultural composition.  Galway is an urban centre where the Irish language is alive and spoken on the street, due in part to the proximity of nearby rural Gaeltacht communities.  The prominence of the Irish language is yet another factor pulling tourists towards the West of Ireland.

“Our rural communities are the backbone of Irish culture. The policies of successive Irish governments, of continually failing to prioritise and constantly under-funding rural development, strips Ireland of its culture. Regressive policies place rural communities and their societal norms under threat.

“When austerity policies dismantle the resources of rural Ireland, by reducing services such as post offices, Garda services and education access, they in turn deplete our culture and lead to greater regional imbalances.

“Ireland’s indigenous culture – our language, music and sport – reaps economic benefits and drives tourism. By protecting Ireland’s rural communities, we are protecting Irish culture.

Ireland must follow the example of other European regions by promoting and safeguarding our native culture, so Ireland can thrive as a bilingual and diverse nation, rather than a monolingual, urban-oriented nation culturally depleted by a relentless austerity regime.

“I welcome the positive campaign of Galway 2020, which establishes Galway as an cultural capital on a European level; however Ireland must be more creative in its strategic approach towards promoting and sustaining its culture, tourism and heritage’ the Sinn Féin representative concluded.

Sinn Fein MEP Matt Carthy has called on the Government to immediately move to shut down remaining tax avoidance loopholes in Irish legislation, following the publication of a new report on the tax havens used by US Fortune 500 companies and the profits they book offshore.

Carthy, a member of the European Parliament’s Panama Papers inquiry, was speaking in response to the publication of the 2017 edition of ‘Offshore Shell Games’, produced by the US-based Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy and the Public Interest Research Group Education Fund.

“Once again, the Irish state is described in a major academic study as being a tax haven for the world’s wealthiest corporations. It is listed as the sixth most used tax haven for Fortune 500 companies to establish subsidiaries in, following the Netherlands at number one, Singapore, Hong Kong, Luxembourg and Switzerland.

“This report charts the increasing hoarding of cash offshore by these corporations between 2010 and 2016. Fortune 500 companies are now holding an astonishing $2.6 trillion in accumulated profits offshore for tax purposes. Four of these companies collectively account for a quarter of this sum – Apple, Pfizer, Microsoft and General Electric.

“All four of these companies have subsidiaries in Ireland – in fact, of the top 10 Fortune 500 companies in terms of the amount of profits they book offshore, nine have subsidiaries operating in the Irish state. In the cases of Apple and Google, they only list subsidiaries in Ireland.

“According to this report, Apple has booked $246 billion offshore, more than any other company in the world.  Every single cent has been booked through Irish subsidiaries, resulting in the company avoiding paying $76.7 billion in taxes in the US.

“Through its use of the Double Irish tax avoidance scheme, Google has  increased the amount of earnings it reported offshore from $12.3 billion in 2009 to $60.7 billion.”

“The Government must immediately scrap the Double Irish, and legislate against the use of corporate inversions, which were highlighted as a key tax avoidance technique in this report.

Carthy concluded:

“This offshore scam is the single most important factor contributing to the obscene inequality we can see increasing rapidly around the world. For the Irish state to play a role in this global chain of tax avoidance is abhorrent and indefensible. We need decisive and immediate action to stop this behaviour that goes beyond the bare minimum agreed to by the OECD.”