Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Politics sometimes boils down to yes-no questions and how one would vote on something. We are not voting on this issue of the expelling of Russian diplomats but, in effect, by setting out one's position, one has to answer in a sense here a yes-no question as to whether we support a particular measure or not. Sometimes one would seek a preferendum where one could have a variety of options but sometimes one cannot afford answering the yes-no question and that is not a bad thing. It brings one to clarity, maybe, on a particular issue.

I listened with interest to the comments of Members here and through the past two days in the wider public debate about this issue of the potential expulsion of Russian diplomats and much of what is said strikes home to me as true. First, all sorts of espionage goes on in our world at present and the question is how can one pick out one particular instance or find one particular example of it and take that as one's test case. Particularly in our country one of the biggest issues is that we are constantly under surveillance in all our electronic communications in that all digital material leaving this island via fibre-optic cables is spliced into and is accessed by GCHQ which has the ability to read and see what we are communicating. That is an issue that we, as a country, have never fought strongly enough against and raised the alarm about.

There are many examples of international incidents. Deputy Clare Daly cited numerous examples one could pick but there is a range of developments in the world today that we should possibly be looking to raise diplomatic concern about. For me, personally, one of the most significant developments has been the development of drone warfare, the development of unmanned far-distant use of military weapons to assassinate people, effectively, outside of any legal order. One could look at others. Commentators are rightly concerned about the issue of cybercrime and the influence of the Internet on our own democratic security, as much as anything else, with the Cambridge Analytica revelations last week. One of the worst such cases was the deployment of stuxnet malware in a power station from western agencies. There are numerous examples one could pick. Indeed, if one was looking at the Russian examples, we could look at what has been happening in Syria in recent years in terms of the bombing of civilian areas as a clear breach of proper international order. All those arguments make sense in terms of us not living in a fair and right world and there are so many matters on which we must take a particular stand.

I am considering my own view on this issue and what the specific approach of the Government should be. I am drawn to what my colleagues in the European Green movement across Europe have been saying. Green MEP Ms Rebecca Harms, the co-chair of the European Green Party, has come out clearly in saying that we are shocked by the offensive use of the military grade nerve agents in this case, that it appears - if it proves otherwise then we will revise - clear it is a nerve agent that has been developed by Russia and that such nerve agents have not been used for over 70 years on European soil and we cannot ignore that fact. As a party, we come rooted in anti-materialisation, CND, anti-nuclear armament and anti-chemical weapons development. There is a convention and a protocol of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and we would support the fact that organisation has being called to carry out an investigation into the attack. We stand up against the use of nerve agents and chemical weapons. That is not in breach of our neutrality. Taking out the international politics of it, are we or are we not concerned about the development and deployment of such weapons? I, for one, am.

I also note the concern raised by my colleague, Dr. Caroline Lucas MP, the co-leader of the English and Welsh Green Party. I understand Dr. Lucas accepts the expulsion of diplomats from the UK. Indeed, she is calling for us to go further, looking for the seizure of some property assets held in London - there are considerable oligarchical profits being funnelled into London - as a signal that that whole system in place at present in the Russian Administration must be confronted. It is that we should not just sit back and accept. Indeed, other colleagues, including Ms Rebecca Harms MEP, are calling for a boycott of the World Cup as one of the signals and others are calling for us to start addressing our use of Russian oil and gas as the most effective means.

Personally, I have good relations with staff in the Russian embassy. We met the officials there and they have come to events we have held. It is no disrespect to the Russian people. Earlier I was having a good cut at the American Administration and what President Trump stands for and it would not be right for us to confront that form of economic nationalism and not also confront the economic nationalism at play in the Russian Administration.

I do not trust Boris Johnson, who received £150,000 to play tennis with some Russian oligarch. His evidence would not convince me to make my decision. My decision is based on how it seems that this is a case where nerve agents were deployed and that represents a historic step in the wrong direction. Based on the idea that we support international co-operation rather than economic nationalism and oppose those types of tactics by any country, my personal conclusion is that, on balance, we are better off supporting it and sending a signal. No one is saying that we have uncovered some great area of espionage. As Deputy Boyd Barrett said earlier, all sorts of espionage goes on, but this decision can be based simply on Ireland standing up as a country against the deployment of nerve agents. Even if the case is not proved to the nth degree, the urgency and the size of the issue means that we should be willing to take a stand along with 15 other European countries in order to say that there is a line we will not cross. We will not tolerate the use of such nerve agents in any circumstances.

That should spill over to our wider approach in respect of the European Council. This is something I put to the Taoiseach earlier. One cannot take a position against economic nationalism and in favour of international co-operation and simultaneously align oneself with Donald Trump, which is something the Taoiseach did explicitly. He said that Ireland is lining up with the US in terms of low corporate tax and with Donald Trump's approach to tax. We are making a historic mistake at the Council by being seen as one of the states trying to block attempts by the European Union to put a stop to €1 trillion - according to figures arrived at by my colleagues in the European Parliament who have undertaken much analysis in this area - being lost as a result of corporate tax avoidance measures. The consistent position of this Government is that Ireland is on the side of corporate tax breaks and it is being seen as not trying to address this critical and urgent issue. That does real damage to this country and places it in the wrong position. The world is changing from the idea whereby trade is everything, free trade rules, there is free capital movement, the market knows best, the greed-is-good approach of the movie character Gordon Gekko, wear the braces, do whatever trade deals we can and play the system and get as much as we can out of it. That is a form of economic nationalism from which we could move on because it is not in tune with the direction in which the global economy needs to go, namely, an environment where global co-operation takes place. At the same time that we have expelled a Russian diplomat, we should do as I have outlined in order to send a signal about our concerns about the use of Novichok. It would be the same if it applied anywhere. This is an issue which is global in import. If we start allowing the use of such agents to become commonplace, we will step into a future which is too scary to contemplate. On that basis alone, we should, as a country, stand against the deployment of such weapons and material. We should back that up by giving a better example in how we co-operate internationally by not always siding with corporate tax breaks or by lining up with Donald Trump, as the Taoiseach has done, and congratulating him on adopting the same policies as Ireland and then trying to defend those policies at the European Council. We should also change that as we take a stand against Russia.

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