Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I join colleagues in welcoming the Ukrainian ambassador to the Chamber. Tonight we are all speaking slightly at a remove, based on facts, figures and reports in the media. Our ambassador has family and friends at home as do all her team. We have to put them at the front of our minds. This is not something they are watching on CNN. It is people's lives and livelihoods. Kilometres away from their front door are 150,000 Russian troops who are not there to keep the peace and are certainly not there for sightseeing.

Their intentions were laid clear by President Putin earlier in the week in what Deputy Howlin correctly called an illuminating speech. It was a damn straight frightening speech. It was a window into the mind of a brutal thug of a dictator who has run roughshod over his own country and his entire sphere of influence since he came to power. He has held power and put in his proxy, Medvedev, and disseminated so much disruption and aggression throughout our Continent, harking back to the darkest days of the cold war and the soviet dictators who preceded him. It is quite clear he does not see himself as some liberal democrat or as president of an independent Russia. He sees himself as an extension of the very worst of the Soviet empire. The facts and events of these past few days have made that achingly clear to the entire world. It had been already achingly clear to many, particularly in Ukraine, over the past decade.

While I welcome the sanctions announced by the European Union and formalised today, I question whether they are enough. There is an emergency European Council meeting tomorrow. Will there be another one next week? I fear there may need to be. While these sanctions, tied with the welcome sanctions from the US Government, non-EU NATO members, the Australian Government and the Japanese Government, may go some way to stalling the aggressive ambition of Vladimir Putin, I do not think they alone will absolutely stop it. I must join with Sinn Féin colleagues opposite in criticising the impotent response from the British Government heretofore in dealing with the Russian oligarchs who use the City of London as their plaything. It was quite telling that the British Prime Minister ran from the Chamber in Westminster yesterday rather than respond directly to the very clear question from the Welsh MP, Chris Bryant about the role of Roman Abramovich.

Can the Minister confirm that the EU sanctions will also be targeted at those banks operating in occupied South Ossetia in Georgia, through which Russia is funding the proxy governments in Donetsk and Luhansk? While these welcome sanctions are targeted against regime leaders, Russian banks and Members of the Duma, sanctions must be targeted at all the actors who are ensuring that chaos reigns in eastern Ukraine. Can the Minister also confirm that the next tranche of sanctions has been already prepared? One of the most welcome things that came out of yesterday's discussions was the belated announcement by the German Government of the cancellation of the Nord Stream 2 project. It will come at a hardship cost in terms of energy provision for Germany and the wider European Union in due course but it is vitally necessary. The Minister has mentioned other things such as the staging of the Champions League final in St Petersburg and other diplomatic measures that will come down to the line. We need to be quite firm about the very clear financial, political and travel sanctions that can still be deployed. I fear they might yet need to be.

Ireland is right to be extremely worried about what is going on in eastern Ukraine, and what has been going on in the Baltic states, fellow European Union member states like Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, what is going on in Belarus, on the borders of Poland, what has been going on in Kazakhstan and what continues to go on in Georgia. We are not at a great distance. We are a €34 flight away from Kyiv. This is not the other side of the world. The Russian sphere of influence absolutely stretches to our shores. Many people raised understandable concerns about Russian naval exercises off the coast of Ireland a number of weeks ago. It actually happened that special powers were used by the Government two years ago to halt construction at the Russian embassy in Rathgar. They were not building a conservatory, a Cheann Comhairle. That was a very real issue. Two Russian diplomats were expelled from Ireland after the attacks in Salisbury in England. That was a terrorist attack on sovereign British soil. We saw the cyber-attack that crippled our health system in August; no doubt if it was not the Russian State it was non-state actors who have the protection of the Russian Government. Russia Todayemployed eight people in the State not so long ago.

They were based at the Digital Hub, an entity financed by the Irish Government. We have skin in the game. There are 150 Irish citizens in Ukraine. So many surrogates in Ukraine give birth to Irish children. There are so many Irish prospective parents at their wits’ end. These are people who are prepared to travel to Poland and walk to Ukraine to protect their children.

Members opposite avidly talk about neutrality, but there are occasions when we have to realise we cannot stand ourselves alone. While I fundamentally welcome the comments of Sinn Féin Deputies in support of UN resolutions and sanctions, why have Sinn Féin MEPs abstained countless times in votes in the European Parliament on proposals to impose sanctions on Russia? After the invasion in 2014, why was it that Sinn Féin MEPs sat in a European Parliament political group with Irish MEPs who defended the thug who is Vladimir Putin? Sinn Féin should not lecture the Government from a height. It should not lecture the State from a height. It has enough in this area. Welcoming the actions of the Chinese Government given the plight of the Uyghur people and what is going on in Hong Kong is certainly something-----

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