Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. I know she has to go but I will try to answer her questions. The first thing to say is there has already been a significant level of support for Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia from the EU in relation to reforms and institutional support. I think that will continue as they journey towards, in Georgia's case, candidate status in future and then on, we hope, to full membership in time and likewise for Moldova and Ukraine. Of course, let us not forget about the Western Balkans because if we forget about them politically and allow tensions to build there, we could live to regret it. Aspirations for EU memberships are a big part of stabilising the Western Balkans and relationships there. It is something the EU needs to continue to focus on despite all the other pressures in terms of moving ahead, particularly on North Macedonia and Albania but also for others as well.

On the comment it will take 15 years for the sanctions to bite, sanctions are not a perfect tool and we know that but is anybody suggesting we should not have sanctions? We are trying to measure whether the sanctions are working or not. Clearly, the only real measurement is whether the war will come to an end and whether sanctions, in the form of creating a cost for Russia, have contributed to that. We know there is a cost to Russia linked to those sanctions. It is not as impactful as it otherwise would be because Russia is developing new commercial relationships with certain countries that help to compensate and open up new markets for product that would otherwise have been coming to the EU. We know that is happening. The price of oil and gas is such now internationally that if Russia can sell it to some parts of the world, and it can, it is doing so for a much higher price. The sanctions are not perfect, therefore, but we are certainly better having them than not. As for the idea you can set a moment in a future at which you can say the sanctions have worked, such as after 15 years or whatever, this is not an exact science. This is about sending a clear signal that as long as this war continues the political and economic relationship between the EU and Russia is going to be very badly damaged and Russia will be isolated in its relationship with many countries in the world, that that has a serious cost and the cost is likely to increase as this war continues through new rounds of sanctions and so on. In other words, there must be a deterrent that has edge to it and cost to it, which is what we are trying to do with sanctions. It is not an anti-Russia thing but an anti-Russian aggression thing. There is a difference.

On Africa, undoubtedly the EU is a huge funder of development and working with governments across the Horn of Africa and the Sahel. It is doing so much more so than Russia is. However, Russia also has security relationships with quite a number of African countries and has influence in that regard. If you take what is happening in Mali and a number of neighbouring states in terms of the influence of Russia and Russian proxies on security through mercenary groups and so on, you can see there is a strong influence there and I suspect the Russians are using it. To be fair, for many countries on the African Continent, a doubling of food prices has an enormous consequence in the form of potential instability and the impact on populations that are already under much pressure in a number of Sahel countries. The Horn of Africa has seen significant drought this year as well, so the combined impact of a lack of harvest as well as a significant increase in the cost of importing food is having a big and very disruptive impact and many African leaders are very concerned about it and they just want it to stop. They see it as linked to the war and sanctions and so on. We must work hard, and we are, to explain what is really driving this, which is Russian aggression and of course a continued blockade of access in and out of Ukraine from the Black Sea. Those efforts will continue. The Deputy should not underestimate Russia's influence around the world. It is a very big and influential country.

I take the point on the civil society groups. We need to listen to that.

The final point I wish to make is on trying to see ahead a few months. We are starting to see some political conversations driven by the pressure we are feeling with housing and accommodation and the blaming of certain people or categories of people. We must work really hard to ensure that does not get traction.

The last thing we need here is political tension on the migration question. I refer to taking what we are trying to do as part of a war effort to support displaced people from Ukraine, who are fleeing for their lives, and comparing it with the needs of Irish people who are on housing lists or families who are homeless and so on, and starting to blame people for the pressures that everybody is feeling. The Government, State agencies and local authorities have to work really hard to ensure that this does not happen. As Deputy Harkin said, we are already hearing some commentary that may get louder through the summer and into the autumn. I think we need to be careful of that. Ireland is one of the very few countries in Europe that has not allowed the issues of immigration, asylum and refugees to become a central point of division in politics. We have worked hard to make sure that has not happened here. We have to continue to make sure it does not, and to try to keep a consensus on the basis of decency of our obligations under international law, human rights and so on. We can do that through this challenge too.

No Ukrainian in Ireland deserves to be blamed for housing pressures. Those pressures are not their fault. In many cases, they arrive here with no more than the contents of a rucksack for themselves and their kids. We have an obligation to look after them while they are here, to provide accommodation as best we can and to show generosity, so that when all of this is over Ireland can look at itself in the mirror and we can say that we did our bit in a way that was generous and showed real solidarity at a time of extraordinary human suffering. We need to remember that when we are trying to deal with these pressures at a local authority level around accommodation and moving people out of student accommodation into other accommodation and so on. It is not easy when we are trying to deal with 40,000 people in the space of a few months. It is important that we bring the conversation back to the truth of what is really driving that and the suffering behind it in order to make sure that we have the right context. Otherwise, we will allow the debate to move into a very unhelpful and unfair space. It is unfair on people who are at a very vulnerable point in their lives, who are now living here and who arrived with virtually nothing.