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

I am glad to hear the Minister is having those discussions with the Kremlin or its foreign minister. I am aware Russia is permanently represented on the Security Council. We have to use whatever influence we have. I appreciate we may get a deaf ear at times, but it is important we seize the opportunity on the Security Council to push that agenda as far as we can.

The other point I will make as to what we can control is that it was especially shameful that Apple and Google - Telegram also, but perhaps it is a less overt and less commercial multinational - collaborated in this deceit because they removed the Navalny smart voting app from the platforms in Russia a week before the election. They colluded in the declaration of Navalny's organisation as extremist and then effectively took instructions from the Kremlin to deactivate those apps. I have written to Deputy Flanagan, as Chairman of the foreign affairs committee, to request that Apple and Google come before our committee to explain those actions. I am particularly concerned, given what we have seen in other votes, not least Brexit and the American elections, about the interference of social media and their platforms in free and fair elections, that these companies seem to have learned no lessons and are now actually propagating this and colluding with Russia. It is especially abhorrent, and I hope these companies come before the foreign affairs committee and that the Government will support me in seeking to take them to task.

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