Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will give the floor to the ambassador now to answer the questions raised and then I will resume with Deputy Berry.

I cannot grasp the motive beyond the question about the neutrality of Ireland. This is a fact. This is Ireland's choice and this is your policy that is enshrined in your Constitution. What else is there for me to say? We certainly respect the choice of the Irish people. It is a fact of life and law. There is nothing to debate here.

With regard to letter, as referred to by the foreign Minister, is not an exclusive message to Ireland. This letter, sent to all foreign ministers of all the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, countries, OSCE, which comprises all of Europe, and including United States, and Canada, was a point and a question. I tried to dwell upon this in my opening statement: "how do you at this point in time view the principle of indivisibility of security?" This is the heart of the matter now as we are debating it and as one can tell from our own discussion here, it is quite important and crucial as we make up our minds. Everything else will depend upon the answer to this question. This is not a challenge, it is a respectable question that will be factored into our own deliberation and the report to the President as to the next steps by Russia in the ongoing dialogue. This is a pretty obvious and, I believe, respectful way of conducting diplomacy. There is no hidden agenda. Ireland is among the partners with whom we talk about these things.

The next question was about only one independently verified information about troop deployments. I can tell the committee that we certainly know for sure where they are and where they have been. I do not know of any independent actor in this area of the verification of troop deployments. We had the open skies agreement, which the United States has unilaterally ruined. Under that agreement one could have imagined that there would be aircraft flying, taking photos, and ensuring that the situation is there, but there is no chance to do that because this agreement is no longer working. Ireland just has to believe us or them; it is for Ireland to choose. We are not in a game of trying to whip up tensions. There is no reason for us to do so. Ukraine is our neighbouring country and we want stability there. We want the conflict there to be over, with a good reliable outcome. That is the whole policy motive, reason, aim and goal. That is it. I reject any speculation about our troops on our own territory.

In our press, we have a newspaper Kommersant, which is a well-regarded, more or less, like an opposition paper. They sent news reporters to the areas adjoining the Ukrainian border, and they went through village talking to people and asking them "Have you seen anything there?" People did not, at first, get the idea of the question because there had been no tanks there, nothing except maybe hungry wolves running around because it has been quite a winter this year. The overall picture there just shows that the troops, whatever they are, are in their winter quarters and stationed as they were. There is no activity at all. The highway from Belgorod, which is a Russian city, to Kharkov, which is a Ukrainian city, is a major highway. It is working okay and the checkpoint on the border is working okay. The traffic is not that much, but it is still there and trucks are going both ways. The committee might be surprised to hear it, but trade is still going on between Ukraine and Russia. We did not respond to the sanctions the Kyiv Government imposed in certain areas of our economy. We are still carrying on trade in the interests of many economic operators in both countries. There is also the humanitarian exchange with people going back and forth for family reasons. The reality there is different if one compares it with the pictures in the newspapers here.

I certainly believe that the whole hoopla is a political gimmick. It is a well calculated attempt. There are plenty of experts in the intelligence area in the US. The committee members might remember the old US movie "Wag the Dog". Perhaps the members have seen it. The story is about how to make up a conflict in Europe by manipulating the media, without any conflict, and just with certain technology of manipulation. This very much resembles the whole story now with the build up.

On the famous cables and the question of "why there?", I am not aware of any specific reason the general staff of our Navy picked this particular point of the Atlantic. I am aware that they have been carrying out training in all parts of the Atlantic. I am pretty sure that there is no specific point to it that is connected to the transatlantic communication cable, even for technical reasons. We are talking about two corvettes going there for five days. I must make one very important. The committee will be aware, as I am sure it has received well-prepared briefings, that the exclusive economic zone is not territorial waters. These are international waters and our Navy is pretty much in their own right, under international law, to carry out these exercises. This exercise is a small, small part of the military activity around Ireland that is carried out by the UK Navy and the US Navy. I honestly cannot recall over recent years, since I have been here, anybody in the press raising an issue of environmental damage to the Irish economic interests as a result of such military activity by Ireland's neighbours.

I appreciate the attention paid to Russia in this regard, but I do not think that it is in any way comparable to what is going on. Not on a daily basis, but on a constant basis there is a lot of nuclear submarine traffic around the north side of Ireland. There have been numerous incidents in the past. They have inflicted lethal damage on fishermen with their propellers taking in the nets. If you compare the two things, there is nothing to be concerned about.

I will now refer to cyberspace. This is a developing story. We are very well aware of the dangers and potential of harm there in terms of many issues such as intrusion into personal life and disruptions in critical infrastructure. We have been through one of these episodes here in Ireland, as the committee knows perfectly well, with the attack by hackers on the HSE system. It was suggested that the hackers were Russian. We immediately suggested our assistance in the investigation of this matter, as we have a very potent cybercriminal force within our police department. Our Irish partners decided to go another way but, in any case, we would appreciate such co-operation because it can only be done bilaterally. We need to pinpoint these kinds of people if they are in Russia. If they are doing harmful things, we have to grab them. We are interested in that. In Russia, we suffer more than 20,000 attacks a year of a major magnitude. I do not remember exactly, but out of that there is a considerable portion of ransomware attacks and we are very concerned about that. There is nothing here other than a huge blanket area of co-operation. We have been active at the UN. We need a legal basis for that, and we have promoted a UN convention on cybercrime because we do not yet have the universal instrument in this area that we need. That would facilitate co-operation on practical matters in instances like the one I mentioned.

The sovereign internet is an idea that is being played out in a number of countries, including in Russia. It does not mean closing the Internet to outside access. The idea is probably to have a back-up system like we have a backup of a hard drive just to make sure that if it goes down we have something to rely upon. That is the only thing.

Could you help me with the question asked by the member online, Chairman?