Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Since the last European Council meeting, things have escalated significantly, certainly insofar as the potential conflict in Ukraine is concerned. It is very alarming every single evening to see the build-up of tanks and 100,000 troops on the eastern border of Ukraine and Russia. It is very intimidating. We see President Putin repeatedly put it up to all countries in the West, including Ireland this week with the potential of ballistics testing in our exclusive economic zone at sea. I was watching the news last night like many people in this country and saw how a small group of fishermen in the south west of our country will take their own stand. It is important that Ireland also take a stand. We might be geographically a minnow nation but, geopolitically, we pack a punch and we need to use our seat as a member of the European Union and a member of the UN Security Council until 2023. It is crucial that we use all voices we have to bring calm to the situation and to say in the clearest possible terms that we absolutely condemn what the Russian state is attempting to do.

Before coming over to the Chamber, I took a look at the Russian exclusive economic zone at sea. It encompasses a huge body of water of approximately 8.5 million sq. km. Why can the Russians not do their training exercises there? You would not see the Irish Navy going off the coast of St. Petersburg or the Irish Army playing war games. It is the civilians of Ukraine and the people who depend on our fishing waters who will pay the price here because marine life will be hugely damaged by what is to happen.

I have repeatedly raised the issue of Afghanistan in this Chamber. The European Union and Ireland as a member state of the UN Security Council cannot take our eye off this. One thing has bothered me hugely since taking up a seat in the Dáil. I have contact with a number of families in Afghanistan. We talk every second day or two on WhatsApp. They often send me voice memos. You can hear what is going on in the background. I probably got too personally involved with them and, as an elected representative of the Dáil repeatedly raising their cases here, I probably give them too much hope that Ireland could bring them over as refugees and give them some safety. It is harrowing each evening to hear what goes on. I hope it is permissible to show this photograph in the Dáil. There is no face shown in it, but this is a ten-year-old boy in Afghanistan who was whipped within a few inches of his life only last week. People in the media say continuously that the Taliban has turned a corner and is now at the table, that they are serious politicians and that we should talk to them and engage with diplomacy and dialogue. The Taliban is anything but. They are the same thugs and bullies they were a decade ago. They are whipping ten-year-old boys. I also have WhatsApp voice memos on my phone of machine gun fire going off on the street and a bullwhip being used to drive people into their homes when it got dark one evening in Kabul. This is going on every single evening. Because it has disappeared off RTÉ News: Nine O'Clock, Sky News and BBC News, it is crucial that we at least at a political level keep this high on the agenda not only domestically but also internationally.

A number of people who have been employed by an Irish-headquartered company are still in Kabul, having their lives put at risk daily. We owe it to them, because of their long-established links to Ireland, to bring them over on the refugee programme and to give them the safety here that they deserve.

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