Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We cannot deal with every issue but I wish to raise the appalling atrocities in Aleppo and the Russian involvement in that. The people of Syria wish to live in their own communities in peace and freedom, but what they have gone through in recent years has been unspeakable. It is, without question, the worst crisis for a population since the Second World War. It is extremely important that one sees a sense of urgency from the European leadership at the European Council meeting about the crisis and the role of Russia in Aleppo. What is taking place is incomprehensible. It is also instructive that Russia is seeking to withdraw from the International Criminal Court. The sole reason, of course, is to avoid being accountable to the only international body capable of holding people responsible for war crimes. The blanket bombing of hospitals and humanitarian convoys and the extraordinary scenes this morning of children being brought out by their parents and families, one of the children with an intravenous, IV, drip still attached, are harrowing, and there is a sense that the world is turning a blind eye. There is a horrible sense of people not engaging with that reality, which will involve tough decisions.

There is pressure in Europe to lift the sanctions on Russia, and we must resist that. What Russia did in Ukraine was wrong and if we start a policy of appeasement, acceptance or acquiescence, the parallels with the 1930s will be very obvious. In recent years, Russia has placed a great deal of emphasis on destabilising or undermining democracies and public faith in democratic systems. I am not just talking about the American election. Russia has close ties to the neo-Nazi Jobbik party in Hungary, the Freedom Party of Austria and, even worse, the Golden Dawn party in Greece. It has provided an acknowledged loan of approximately €9 million to support the Front National party in France, and Nigel Farage has long played a starring role in the Russian state-controlled media. On the far left, there are people who are directly linked with Russia, including the communist parties in the European Parliament, such as in Sinn Féin's European Parliament group, while-----

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