Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I was going to start by pointing out how good a student Deputy Calleary was, and I might have even asked about Deputy Richmond but I always assumed he was best in class, or at least that is the story he has sold. We could go all over the place debating foreign policy but we will not go there. Deputy Calleary asked how far the European Union can go within the constraints. I acknowledge it is slightly different from the point of view of the vaccine roll-out, whereby there was not a national competence and the EU, because it was in everybody's interest, was able to do business, for want of a better term.

Best case scenario, there is a diplomatic solution to this. There is always a wee bit of doubt, but while invasion is possible, we all probably do not expect it to happen. Our guests spoke about some of the issues I wanted to ask about. Vladimir Putin is President, and there will be a number of people who believe their clock was wiped at the end of the Cold War and they will use whatever means they can as leverage. On one level, going up against Vladimir Putin is like going up against the local drug dealer. He has greater leverage because he is willing to burn your house down. The real question, however, concerns how many houses he is willing to burn down. Dictators do not tend to improve with time. These might be decisions we do not necessarily like but they are logical. The Russians are willing to play games in the Balkans and throughout Europe and to do what they are doing here. They are involved throughout Syria and the wider Middle East and, obviously, they have economic engagements in places I am not even aware of.

I acknowledge they do not have a crystal ball, but where do our guests think Vladimir Putin is in this context and how far is he willing to go? There was some conversation earlier about Ireland being a weak point, some of which relates to the Commission on the Defence Forces and the fact we lack certain capacity even to exist as a neutral state. That is something that needs to be answered outside of this committee. This is not just about our fear in respect of cybersecurity, and there was the HSE attack. Beyond that, there was a belief that some of the criminal elements that were involved could almost be called sub-contractors, given they may operate for a particular state we may have recently mentioned. We will always be up against that sort of capacity. That is difficult to take on and it will have to happen at an international level. There was also the implied threat of actions in the exclusive economic zone to cut the communication cables for a significant portion of Europe. How weak are we in that regard?