David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I join the Tánaiste and calling for all violence to cease straightaway. The suffering is immense, intense and shocking. I also call on Israel to pause what it is doing. The Tánaiste is right; this must pause now. As he said in his opening remarks, this is an incredibly dark period and it will get darker, and the prospects of regional escalation are very real. He said he spoke to the Iranian foreign minister; I am not sure if he can tell us what he said to him. I believe the Iranians are the big players here and are very influential. I hope Iran and all the other countries the Tánaiste mentioned will step up and do what they can to try to stop this. The first question is what the Iranian foreign minister said to the Tánaiste.

We cannot forget about the awful violence in Ukraine which has gone off the front pages of the newspapers in the last few days because of what is happening in Gaza and Israel. In his opening remarks the Tánaiste said that its importance to our interests as a State is immense. He said "Ukraine is fighting to protect the Europe that we wish to continue to live in." I asked him to expand on that. Is he saying that the way of life we have here is at risk because of what might happen if Ukraine capitulates and is defeated?

Finally, where do we go now after the consultative forum?