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

I imagine the Minister of State is not going to go into any great detail, and perhaps he may not be aware of it, on why these Russian diplomats were expelled. In the preliminary stages, when the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Coveney, said an examination of the diplomatic staff would be undertaken, I think he used the term "operatives". I thought that was interesting.

Turning to the wider issue, there has been extensive commentary regarding why Russia has such a major diplomatic presence in Ireland. One suggestion made was that, on some level, we are possibly a clearing house for espionage and industrial espionage operations across Europe, including the use of operatives who are termed "illegals". It is fantastic stuff and I suppose everyone who has read a book by Frederick Forsyth now believes they are experts. A wider issue is that we are one of the technology capitals of the world and our fear in this context relates to cyberattacks and hybrid threats. What discussions has the Government had about this aspect? Equally, what discussions have there been at the EU Council level and beyond regarding co-operation and being prepared for such eventualities?

Moving on to the sanctions, they are hurting and that is what we wanted them to do. There is always the fear, though, that war economies seem to be able to survive much longer than we might anticipate. The sanctions should be able to bite as much as is possible to force Putin to rethink continuing this war. When Ambassador Gerasko appeared before this committee, she spoke about a list that had been given to the Department of Foreign Affairs of businesses still dealing with Russia. I understand the complications in the context of the interconnectivity of the world economy, and it takes time to even explore all the machinations in the IFSC, but could we get an update regarding this aspect?

To address another topic, let us forget the rights and wrongs of being non-aligned and the issue of neutrality. We saw what happened in the context of President Joe Biden's utterances at the weekend. Fears have been expressed about moving the EU in the direction of being a military alliance, even by some people who have a greater interest in this happening than I do. The worry about doing that now or even of putting the possibility of it happening on the agenda, is that it might become a difficulty in negotiations between President Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian representatives and the Russians. I refer to talk of neutrality.