Paul Murphy: Condemns Putin, Warns Against Abandoning Neutrality

The world is horrified by Putin's brutal invasion of Ukraine, by the war crimes which are now being committed, and by the threat of this spiralling into a full-scale hot war between nuclear powers. We condemn unreservedly this brutal invasion and demand that Putin withdraws from Ukraine immediately and unconditionally. I want to pay tribute to the anti-war protesters in Russia in conditions of horrendous repression. Over a million have signed a petition, tens of thousands have come out onto the street, over 6,000 have been arrested. And I ask, will you join with me in calling for those prisoners to be released? Finally, I do want to make the point and to ask the question, do you agree with the Taoiseach's comments, which clearly point towards undermining Ireland's long-standing position of military neutrality? He said, quote, I do see us getting more involved in European defence. He says about PESCO, it offers one route to, quote, deeper involvement in European defence. He talked about removing the requirement for UN Security Resolution for Ireland's participation in the military. Do you oppose the very cynical attempt to use people's horror at what's happening in Ukraine, to drive through a Fine Gael agenda, to abandon neutrality and to align with NATO? I accept, of course, war crimes have been committed as we speak. And all those protesting against the Russian aggression within Moscow should be freed. And the persecution that is continuing against anybody who protests in Russia against government policy is absolutely scandalous. And I would support you entirely in calling that out and those prisoners to be released. And in terms of PESCO, you know, when we talk about security, PESCO is an important facility that we've joined up to. Cyber security is a massive issue. Ireland will not deal with cyber security on its own. Ireland needs to work with other European countries in terms of collectively responding to cyber security attacks, which have the capacity to paralyse nations. And I read just last evening some reports coming back to us through our missions. In Germany, huge alarm, anxiety. This is an advance of the war about potential cyber attacks on German infrastructure. We had it last year in the context of our health service. It really caused enormous damage to our health service. In terms of the Deputy MacDonald, very quickly, we have an increased guarded presence in the area north and east inner city, strong support for the pilot north inner city local community safety partnership, an educational bursary for local guarding and the community agency to enhance skills, and, as you know, the completion of the refurbishment of Fitzgibbon guarded station, and there is much more in education, training and employment. On Deputy Tobin's issue. Again, I made a point. We are not seeking permission from the European Union. We are entitled to take any decision we like in respect of diplomatic channels, ending them or reducing them or whatever. But I have said what I have said consistently from the beginning. The strongest response from Europe is to be united. And never has the European Union been more united, in short, a more speedier response, with great determination to apply unprecedented levels of sanctions that no one comprehended a week ago in terms of financial and banking sanctions. So we do not need permission to do anything other than what we have said to you. We do believe in the interest of Irish citizens in Russia or in the Ukraine. Keeping channels open matters in terms of helping Irish citizens who could be in jeopardy. It also helps in terms of information, in terms of knowledge, and in terms of communicating our positions on key events. It is an easy thing to do in one sense, but I think we need calm heads here, as we navigate our way through this, what will be, I think, a terrible humanitarian crisis that we will have to deal with. And we have to be very generous in responding to that humanitarian crisis. But it is a very serious one. And we have people now in Ukraine at the moment who will need our help. Irish citizens in hospitals and so forth. And so, therefore, that is why we have to proceed carefully in relation to that. And finally, Deputy Barry, we do not obviously support, nor do we have any evidence of the application of any racist approach to facilitating migration into Poland. What we do have evidence of is 100,000 people so far have been facilitated by the Polish authorities in coming into Poland. And I think that is important. And in terms of Deputy Devlin's point of view, I do support Ukraine's application to be members of the European Union. There is a process there, but I believe it should be a candidate of country. I am consistently of the view that the European perspective represents perhaps the most important strategic approach that the European Union can take, not just in the eastern neighbourhood, but in the Western Balkans as well. It has been too slow in terms of application processes for a lot of countries. And then Europe complains when Russia and others start meddling in the affairs of the Western Balkans, as we saw recently during COVID-19 in terms of the deployment of vaccines for geopolitical objectives, which is reprehensible in itself. Thank you.