Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I echo the Deputy's comments. What Russia is doing is horrific. At the very least, it should be forced by our Government and every other country to justify the unjustifiable publicly. What Russia is doing to kids and innocent people cannot be justified - the devastation of eastern Ghouta, the slaughter of hundreds of people, the destruction of hospitals and schools etc.

Beyond that, we should continue pushing for the most generous support and acceptance of Syrian refugees fleeing from this horror into Europe. Europe's response to those refugees has not been great. It has essentially used Turkey as a buffer to keep many of these desperate Syrians out. Turkey is also implicated in this, given that it has invaded northern Syrian to serve its cynical desire to crush the Kurdish movement. We should be consistent across the entire region and call out, for example, the Saudi regime, which is backing militias in the area, and other external powers like the US that are inflaming a disaster in Syria for their own cynical interests, but let us start with the Russian ambassador by calling him in.

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