James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to hear the Minister's response and it is worth traversing some of those events. In St. Petersburg, not only did we see multiple buses coaching people who in many cases were unidentified to polling stations but we had the phenomenon of doppelganger candidates where the lead opposition candidate was suddenly shadowed on the ballot paper with two or three candidates of extremely similar names, which deliberately caused mass confusion.

The Minister referred to the issue of election monitors being prohibited from entering the country, or certainly being very restricted, meaning they had no meaningful engagement. Also of particular concern are the events in Moscow, the capital city, which has a larger liberal and urban electorate, and where the online polling was first delayed and then flipped in terms of what had been the projections suddenly to return pro-Kremlin numbers. The mayor of Moscow, who was responsible for the events, was seen on a podium chanting Putin's name shortly afterwards.

There has been a school of thought that, post the Cold War, the West was a little overly triumphalist and that contributed to a resurgence of Russian patriotism. Perhaps now, however, we need to assert ourselves again and the West needs to get involved again. Through the Security Council, the European Council or other avenues open to Ireland, we need to make the case for democracy in Russia, as elsewhere.

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