Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I join with others in stating very clearly that the use of chemical weapons cannot and should not ever be tolerated. A number of issues surrounding the expulsion of a Russian diplomat by the Government need to be highlighted. Last week we saw the Taoiseach once again announce a shift in Government policy to the media before he came in here to make the same announcement to the Oireachtas. Today in the Dáil the Taoiseach said it was highly likely that Russia was behind the nerve agent attack in Britain.

While expressions of solidarity with Britain are appropriate considering that a nerve agent was used in its territory, involving Ireland in this issue by expelling Russian diplomats as an act of solidarity with Britain is a clear move away from Irish neutrality and our independent foreign policy. In recent times Ireland has only expelled diplomats in instances where there have been transgressions within our jurisdiction, with the expulsion of Israeli and Russian diplomats for forging Irish passports.

The people of Ireland need to know the reasons for the expulsion of this diplomat because they want to know if it can be justified or if the Fine Gael Government is expelling an official of one state at the behest of the British state, a state whose government continues to withhold information on the Dublin and Monaghan bombings. The people need to know the truth because it looks like we are inserting ourselves in a geopolitical row on the basis of hearsay from the same British intelligence services which reported that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

If our security services have information on espionage being run from the Russian embassy here why were we not told of this before the European Council meeting? Why was no action taken to expel such persons before then? Politicians and the public need to be informed on these issues. I am sure that no one would have any problem whatsoever with expelling a person from this State who was a threat to our national security. However, I would caution that if this is not the case in this instance, we should not give in to the hyperbole being pushed by the British Tory Party, but should instead chart our own foreign policy based on facts and a level headed approach.

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