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

The witnesses are both very welcome. It goes without saying that the Georgian ambassador has done incredible work. I am sure if Mr. Janjalia took a walk around, he would realise there is nobody in this place that the ambassador does not know or to whom he has not reached out previously. In fairness to him, he has done fierce work in presenting Georgia's case.

A number of us were lucky to have visited Mr. Janjalia's beautiful country. It is only when one is there that one gets to see and get a notion of the people and the particular issues. As the Chair said, Ireland is supportive of Georgia and ensuring it has a roadmap to accession to the EU. When we made the trip to Georgia, things were not exactly as Mr. Janjalia would have wished them to be around its candidate status. That has probably moved on, however.

I will raise two issues with Mr. Janjalia and then ask further questions afterwards. Mr. Janjalia dealt with some of the actions Georgia is taking to meet the necessary conditions and criteria. How does Mr. Janjalia believe that journey is going? We are talking about the possibility of accession and the language around candidate status once certain conditionality has been reached. How does Mr. Janjalia see that journey going? Is there anything in particular the committee can do to facilitate or help that journey?

Mr. Janjalia also addressed Georgia's proximity to Russia given its game-playing, for want of a better term, which will obviously create difficulties. I will ask some specific questions about that later.