David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Dia dhuit a iar-ambasadóir, agus tá fáilte romhat. First, I compliment Mr. O'Donnell on an admirably passionate advocacy of the rights of the people of Ukraine, which is very refreshing and, if it was not always diplomatic, I welcome that. We all feel that the people really squeezed in this situation are the small people who want to get on with their lives, raise their families, educate their children and live happily. There are very worrying historical echoes, for me, of the Sudetenland and the Anschluss, and the way in which German speaking people were deliberately motivated by Berlin to create trouble in order that this would provide an alibi and an excuse. This is particularly worrying in a place like Donetsk, for example.

I have two questions and I would then like to make some comments. First, what, in Mr. O'Donnell's opinion, would constitute a win-win situation? My second question is more fundamental but very important. I am delighted Mr. O'Donnell raised the issue, which concerns the outrageous situation of the UN Security Council. There is absolute need for reform of the UN at the very highest level. It is not tolerable that the post-Second World War situation remains, whereby there are five countries with vetoes permanently on the council. It is totally out of date and it leads to an abrogation of democracy. I was quite amused, by the way, by the attitude of the Chinese on this, in that they abstained and they waffled, and they this and they that. I would love to see them take a similar position with regard to their own situation in Tibet, where they have done huge damage.

I note the reference to confidence building measures we could engage in that would assuage both Ukrainian and Russian anxieties about risks of human rights violations. Mr. Putin is quite a professional human rights violator himself. I have to say, as somebody who likes looking at the psychology of leadership, there seems to me to be something a bit odd about a leader who finds it necessary to gallop around half naked on a stallion in order to demonstrate his masculinity, while he is persecuting gay people who do not behave in half as outrageous a fashion.

The other point I want to make is one I do not think will recommend itself to Mr. O'Donnell, for which I apologise, but I like to look at the truth. I believe Crimea is part of Russia historically. If we look at Crimea, with its enormous Russian naval base and the kind of population balance there, while it may be uncomfortable, I think it is part of Russia. The problem is Putin and the putrid regime that he heads.

It was the same in Iraq. There is not the slightest question or doubt that Kuwait was part of Iraq. In any situation - and I am half-English - where we have the British Administration in 1919 drawing a line from the coast, turning at right angles, taking another right-angled turn, hitting the coast neatly and enclosing all the then known oil reserves for their own advantage, it is obvious that Saddam Hussein was right. He was egged on to a certain extent by the Americans, although they then intervened. The problem was that Saddam was a monster and his regime was appalling. I would say to people on this committee to look at the net result of international intervention led by the United States and Britain. I have been in Iraq. It is a hell of a lot worse. The lives of ordinary people are now infinitely worse than they were before. That is a fact. Where there was a secular state, there is now sectarianism.

I would be worried about this situation, which is immensely complex. I have great sympathy for and empathy with the ordinary, decent people of Ukraine, whether they are Russian speaking or Ukrainian speaking. Our sticking our nose in, in any very militaristic way, would be a disaster. I pose this question.

For example, if Russia had decided to mount a massive propaganda campaign in Hawaii and convinced the indigenous people of the island that they had been walked on and their rights trampled by dreadful flip-flop wearing tourists and they were incited to say, "Russia, please come in and rescue in" and they went in, the Yanks would not like it given all the naval bases and so on in Hawaii. There would be a whiff of cordite around the joint. It is a complex situation. Our interest and that of Mr. O'Donnell is the welfare of the people on the ground. The arrangements of empires are for the people at the top who are usually blackguards.