Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Deputy McDonald's spoke about the trade with the illegal settlements, and she also raised the Ukraine issue. Ukraine will be the dominant feature here.

With regard to the illegal settlements and the Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories) Bill, legal advice has been issued around the competency of the European Union to govern trade policy of the EU and third countries. That is the big problem with the legal validity of the Bill, whether it passes the legal test or the legal threshold, which is the bigger issue. The second issue is that we all must watch the impact of it. I am not clear that any real study of the socioeconomic impact on Palestinians has taken place in respect of the Bill. I remember posing that question at times to the advocates and I did not really get a clear substantive reply as to what the impact would be on Palestinian workers. The situation is complex. The illegal settlements are unacceptable and we have been very clear as a Government on that, and one of the strongest Governments across the EU in respect of what should happen in Palestine.

Deputy Haughey raised the EU-African Union two-day summit, which was a very worthwhile summit. There were a number of breakout sessions. I was at the security and peace session. I also chaired the session on agricultural sustainable development and food systems. What was striking from the presentation on the security and peace was that the overwhelming concern was terrorism and imported terrorism into Africa, which is really destabilising. Boko Haram, the Wagner Group and various mercenaries coming into Africa are causing disputes and conflicts over natural resources. It is a huge threat. If there was one takeaway from the summit, it was the concern among African leaders about the growth in the Sahel and other areas of terrorism, including the murdering of innocent schoolchildren and communities for all sorts of false narratives around succession, claiming autonomy for part of a country, or acting as a puppet for somebody else to take power. There have been attempted coups d'état and so forth.

I took the opportunity when I chaired the session with the Greek Prime Minister and the President of Kenya about the importance of agriculture and food, and we discussed how Ireland developed and evolved from being just commodities-based exports to a much more integrated and sophisticated supply chain food system. There is a lot Ireland can do for Africa in sharing knowledge, expertise and ideas around agriculture and food production.

On asylum, the issue of legal pathways was, of course, an active issue that was discussed.

It was an ongoing discussion in my meeting with the Chancellor yesterday. It is an issue that is gaining ground in terms of how Europe deals with migration. There is a strong move towards developing more legal channels, along with other initiatives.

On vaccines, good progress was made at the conclusions. The leader of South Africa and the President of the Commission agreed to instruct both teams at the WTO to get a resolution to this as quickly as we can. Without question, the European Union is the biggest donor of vaccines across the world, and certainly to Africa, but the levels are too low. What was heartening is the degree to which capacity building in terms of manufacturing within Africa is now growing thanks to the European Union initiative. We will be providing well over €1.5 billion to give capacity to South Africa, Senegal and others to have their own plants. That means technology transfers. It is generally acknowledged that a TRIPS waiver alone will not produce jabs for arms. What is needed is know-how, capacity and technology transfers in terms of personnel who can produce the drugs in situlocally. That is ultimately the way to go. In addition, Europe has committed enormous numbers of vaccines to the middle of this year to dramatically increase the take-up, which is an issue in itself, and to assist in the logistics of the roll-out of the vaccine.

In terms of Ukraine, I have to take issue with Deputy Murphy. His anti-Americanism always trumps a rational assessment of a situation. This is not a clash of two alliances at all. Rather, this is the aggression of Russia. Unfortunately, it has to be called out. It is wrong. NATO has no interest in war.

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