Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

On the Moldova issue, I know that the Chairman has spoken to the Moldovan ambassador in regard to some of these concerns, as I am sure others have too. We are due to meet them tomorrow to follow up to see if we can provide any assistance there. I have made it very clear to colleagues in the EU countries that border Ukraine that we are available to help in any way we can from a logistics perspective, or quite frankly any other perspective, in regard to helping countries to deal with an enormous flow of people, in particular Poland which is taking roughly 50% of all Ukrainians coming into the EU. Slovakia, Hungary and Romania are also taking in Ukrainians. Can we imagine if Ireland had to deal with 1 million people in a week coming into Ireland, to process them, feed them and provide shelter and supports? That is what Poland is going through at the moment. The generosity of the response has been breathtaking. The most difficult issue, politically, in the EU for the past ten years has been migration. We could not agree on anything on how to deal with migration, how to burden-share in the EU, how countries in northern and western Europe could support those in the south that were impacted by significant numbers of migrants and asylum seekers coming from North Africa and the Middle East and so on. Within the space of 48 hours the EU effectively signed off on a temporary protection mechanism which essentially allowed an unlimited number of Ukrainians to come to anywhere in the EU and effectively be treated as EU citizens in terms of supports, housing, healthcare, education, social welfare supports and so on. This is what solidarity actually means. Of course there have been problems on the border given the numbers. However, in general the response from countries that are highly sensitive politically to migration generally, like Hungary, Slovakia and Poland in particular over the past number of years, have set all of that aside. They expect, and are right to expect, solidarity from countries like Ireland in terms of helping with those efforts in the days and weeks ahead. As of this morning we have had about 2,500 Ukrainians arrive here. We can expect that figure to increase by many multiples in the weeks ahead. I will answer some of the questions in terms of why that is the case.

In that context, Moldova is under enormous pressure because Moldova is in many ways a country in between Ukraine and the EU and has had to deal with enormous numbers, including some of our most complex cancer cases in terms of a route through Moldova, out of Ukraine.

Deputy Brady mentioned the ICC. I am a big supporter of the ICC, so is Ireland, but many powerful countries are not. It is important that this process is begun in terms of gathering information and evidence. Whether it will actually result in a prosecution of President Putin remains to be seen but we have to do everything we can to support Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor, who has now opened a formal investigation and file on this with the support of 39 countries. Ireland was one of the early members of that group.

In regard to our ambassador in Moscow, I am not going to go into conversations that have happened between the ambassador and authorities in Moscow apart from saying it is not that unusual, when there is tension, for our ambassador abroad to be called in by a foreign office in another country. It has happened in Israel many times with different ambassadors. He was asked in after the incident in the Russian embassy here in Dublin, which was an unfortunate incident actually because it has distracted attention away from some of the core messages that we need to deliver. That was not an unexpected conversation and I am not overly surprised by it at all.

The entire EU is now on an official list of unfriendly countries. We do not quite know what that is going to mean. It normally means that there are decisions made following up that designation such as targeted sanctions or removal of diplomats. That is what happened with the Czech Republic a few months ago when it was named an unfriendly nation towards Russia. Let us wait and see what happens there. We do not know yet.

In regard to Kyiv and 50% of the civilian population leaving, I am not surprised at that. It means 50% of the population is still there too. Many of them are incredibly determined to fight for their city, their country, their families. The response of the Ukrainian population has been extraordinary in terms of courage and resolve. It was underestimated by Russia. That was not the only thing that has been underestimated. The resolve of the EU and the West more generally was also underestimated.

On Irish assistance, I say very clearly that the advice of the Department of Foreign Affairs to everybody is not to travel to Ukraine. Whether you feel you want to join the fight or whether you want to deliver aid, whatever the motivation, we have very clear travel advice not to travel to Ukraine unless you are part of an international organisation that is formally tasked with delivering aid. The UN has done much work with Russia in trying to secure access for UN humanitarian organisations to get assistance into parts of Ukraine. Those arrangements and negotiations are hugely important in terms of humanitarian assistance but that is a different thing from somebody just deciding to go. I ask everybody to be clear in our messaging on that and to keep everybody safe.

The nuclear concerns are real. We are a board member on the IEA and there are two different nuclear plants that have been a cause for concern. I know about Chernobyl very well and have been involved in campaigns linked to Chernobyl in the past before coming into politics.

Turning off the power to that facility or to parts of it raises concerns around safety in terms of the management of nuclear waste, maintaining temperatures and so on. The statements from the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, have been clear on that and somewhat reassuring during the past 24 hours, but we need to keep a very close eye on it. The much larger plant, which has six reactors, is the largest nuclear power station in Europe. The fact it was fired on as part of the conflict is very worrying and it had quite a serious fire in a training facility next door. Our understanding is those facilities are safe for now. In all conflict there are very clear rules of engagement regarding nuclear facilities with which the Russian military need to comply and to take note of as opposed to the reckless actions we saw.

In terms of the International Financial Services Centre, IFSC, I have said before and I will say it again, we will ensure that in Ireland we are compliant with the sanctions that have been put in place, whether that be with respect to financial services or any other areas.

On the talks in Turkey, I read in the media, but I cannot be sure, there has been no agreement on a ceasefire or on humanitarian aid corridors, and those talks have ended. It is not great, I am afraid, but I certainly commend Turkey on its efforts. Much of the discussion in New York at the start of this week was focused on trying to explore the question of who would approach Russia and how it could be approached to try to change the course of what has been happening. Certainly, Turkey is an important potential contributor to those efforts, as are China and India. I would strongly appeal publicly to China, in particular. It is a global superpower. It has responsibilities like everybody else in the international community to call out breaches of international law and to do what it can to make a positive contribution towards peace, a ceasefire, and an absence of war. It is important to state that.

On the issue of diplomatic engagement and expelling the ambassador, as I have said previously, it is hard to say credibly on the one hand we should expel the ambassador and therefore shut down the Russian embassy in Dublin, because if we expel the ambassador the embassy is gone, and say on the other hand we need to be pursuing diplomatic efforts and channels of communication to try to persuade Russia to change course. That does not make sense to me. I understand the sentiment, the anger and why people would want to expel the Russian ambassador and many others. I understand the sentiment behind that and the calls for that. However, the judgment the Government has made, the three party leaders and me, is that we need to keep diplomatic channels open, even in wartime situations when we are highly critical of the actions Russia continues to take every day, and we need to do so for a number of reasons.

First, we have Irish citizens in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia and I have an obligation to them. Second, I am not aware of any country in the world that has expelled its Russian ambassador and there is a reason for that, namely, in wartime situations, channels of communication are important if we are trying to work towards a ceasefire, an absence of war, humanitarian interventions and so on. Despite how angry one might be with a country or its leadership or how vehemently one disagrees with the decisions it is making, having no communication channels does not make sense. That being said, looking at other options in terms of asking some people to leave is something the EU is discussing collectively and I have had numerous conversations with other foreign ministers in that regard, and I am not ruling anything out there. Basic channels of diplomatic communications are important if the ultimate objective here is to end war, which it is. There are a whole load of other things we need to do too but, ultimately, an awful lot of the other channels become much easier if we could secure the end of-----