H.E. Mrs. Larisa Miculet:

I will begin by responding to Senator Wilson. I said that 700,000 refugees crossed through Moldova, probably back and forth, according to border control agencies in Moldova. I read in the media this morning that in the last 24 hours, 10,000 Ukrainians crossed into the country. That is the flow every day. They are our brothers and sisters and we open our hearts. I cannot imagine that Moldovans could have behaved in any other way. There are 85,000 Ukrainians still in Moldova.

When I reported to the committee in March 2022, I shared the difficulties my country was experiencing at that time because we were not prepared for such a flow. Now mechanisms have been put in place, international organisations are there and we have European partners. The refugees receive appropriate allowances and so on, so everything looks settled. We are happy and consider it our human duty to support our neighbours and help them, so we are doing that job. I know a lot of Ukrainians opened businesses. They are employed, including as doctors, and their children are in school and kindergarten.

Many questions were asked about attempts to destabilise the situation in Moldova. I emphasise that this is nothing new for us. From the time Moldova and its people expressed themselves in different elections and showed their pro-European aspirations, these attempts started. They are probably more amplified now but we were aware of them. The country in question did not and does not like our pro-European aspiration. However, that is our path and we will follow it no matter what. Different tools are used in the attempt to destabilise Moldova in the so-called hybrid war against us. These include disinformation, proxy political actors, cyberattacks and many other methods. They are identified by our intelligence services which work very hard to deal with these attempts, and intelligence is also shared by different partners, including the Ukrainian side. As I mentioned in my statement, so far they have not managed to destabilise. They wanted to discredit our Government and, as Deputy Brady said, even gas and energy were used as a weapon in the efforts to destabilise the country. However, our Government managed to keep the situation calm and we continue to do that.

Deputy Brady also spoke about today's news. Unfortunately, I only saw parts of the speech in question. Of course, this affects our region. The Deputy was referring to the cancellation today of a decree which provided that the Russian Federation would look for peaceful best solutions to solve the Transnistrian conflict. My Government and the Moldovan authorities noted this information.

We are now looking carefully at the legal aspects and everything else. I can confirm, however, that my Government will not deviate from the basic principle we have always declared regarding seeking a diplomatic and peaceful solution to this conflict.

Mention was made of the airport and other declarations I am aware of in this context. Just a few days ago, President Maia Sandu said at the Munich Security Conference that as long as the Ukrainian army keeps Russian forces far from Moldova, then no imminent military threat will come through Transnistria at the moment. We are carefully monitoring the situation via the appropriate agencies in consultation with our strategic partners because we have a partnership with NATO. We are thinking about different solutions to keep Moldova stable and calm.

The energy issue was certainly a very difficult one for my Government to overcome this year. Prices increased five times over. Due to the support of our European partners, solutions were found. This allowed us not only to maintain supplies of gas, electricity, etc., to Moldova, but also, with our European partners, to help our population because this energy situation placed a very difficult burden on people's shoulders. Various solutions were found and the situation is now calm in this field. We are working further on this aspect, but, as I said, we now have other connections and we have other solutions in this regard. We will continue to work on this issue further, however, because not everything has been solved.

Deputy Brady referred to Ireland's willingness and intention to support us with internal and civil service reforms under the European public administration co-ordination exchange. He is absolutely correct in this regard. As part of the programme, during the upcoming visit to Ireland of the chair of our Parliament, we intend to have some meetings with high-level officials and to request support in correctly and efficiently spending public money and restructuring and enhancing the efficiency of our civil service.

I thank Senator Horkan for being with us today and for always being on our side. When I need his support, he is there. I thank him very much for this solidarity and support. I assume that in a few days when the chair of our Parliament will be undertaking activities for a full day here in the Oireachtas, there will be in-depth discussion regarding the situation in Moldova. The Houses will hear this information first hand and in detail. This will include what our priorities are and in which areas we will request Ireland's support.

Deputy Stanton is absolutely correct regarding what he said about propaganda and disinformation. I will not go into detail, but our authorities took serious measures, which were supported by our strategic partners. Despite being criticised by some people, these actions were needed to stop propaganda that was influencing ordinary people who are not always well informed. I refer again to what I said earlier about propaganda and hybrid war in this context.

I also thank Senator Joe O'Reilly for his continuous support. Any time I have had discussions, I have got advice and support from the Senator. Regarding invasion, we understand that we are fragile and that such a threat persists. Going back to what I said, however, as long as Ukrainians are fighting so bravely and keeping Russian forces far from Moldova we feel safe. We are vigilant and doing what is appropriate to strengthen our country's defence capabilities. We feel this is a situation that we must work on very strongly.

I thank the Chair for asking us about the political situation in Moldova. It is stable, despite all these attempts to undo it that we have just discussed. Our Parliament is following its full agenda. It is very much a full one because of our commitments to those European recommendations we must work on. As I said, we will inform the committee of the details of what is being done in a few days. Moldova has a new Government and we have a very pro-European Prime Minister. This new Government has come into office in the context of a planned transition and it has just announced it is going to accelerate reforms in Moldova. Equally, it is going to strengthen security. This team will, therefore, enforce our reforms. As I said in my statement, this Government was supported by a pro-European majority in our Parliament, so there are no worries in this regard.