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

It probably could have been aimed at me fairly.

I thank the ambassador and her team. I salute the courage of the Ukrainian people. It is fair to say that all of us here and throughout the island stand in solidarity with them. As Ms Gerasko stated, Ukraine is up against a criminal invasion and Russian occupation. We have seen absolute courage. We also realise that it is an utterly changed and far smaller world than it was 20 or 30 years ago. We are all aware of Ukrainian families in our own areas. Many Ukrainians have gone back to fight.

Following on from this meeting, the most useful work we could do would be on the ambassador's requests as regards language courses and access to community centres.

An awful lot of that can be done on an ad hocbasis but it would be far better if this committee took a hands-on approach and corresponded with the witnesses on that. We need doctors who can deal with kids and families with PTSD. While we are currently dealing with 5,000 or 6,000 people, the numbers are bound to become much greater. There is talk of 4 million people being on the move but I have seen estimates of up to 12 million. The worse this war gets for Russia, the greater the numbers will be.

In fairness to Deputy Richmond, I also think we should play a part here. It is all well and good to talk about facilitating and expediting membership of the European Union but we should help and facilitate properly wherever we can. I ask that we start that element of correspondence.

Nobody will die of shock to learn that corrupt politicians fled the minute things got very difficult on the ground. We see who did not and that is to be commended.

I have two very quick questions. We have to assume Russian intelligence was not great as the war is not going particularly well for it. Russia has lost about 13,000 soldiers and a huge amount of other resources. There is a threat of nuclear and chemical weapons and Her Excellency has expressed a fear about false flag operations. We have had conversations around peace negotiations. Where do the witnesses see all of that? They have put their requests on the table and they are very straight, such as closing the seaports and cutting off whatever Russian resources for fighting this war we can. There has been much talk about the Russian money that has gone through the IFSC. Is there anything specifically that Ukraine needs Ireland to do in order to cut off Russia's ability to fight this absolutely criminal war?