Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I wish to begin by welcoming the Ukrainian ambassador and expressing our deepest solidarity, on behalf of the Social Democrats and the people of Dublin Central who I represent, with the ambassador and the Ukrainian people today. I cannot imagine what it is like to have the Russian Federation acting like a bully and a thug at the border, threatening violence on an immense scale. We stand in full solidarity with the Ukrainian people today. That is what is happening. The Russian Federation is behaving like a bully and a thug. We have seen that on a relatively small scale in comparison with what the people of Ukraine are experiencing in terms of incursions into our airspace over the last number of years and the tracking of undersea fibre-optic cables. We have seen what happened to our neighbours in the chemical terrorist attack in Salisbury. This is a mafia that is designed to upset global order and is doing that in a multitude of different ways. It is high time that the people on the global stage came together in solidarity to say: "no more".

However, I do want to caution against the inevitability of war in terms of what the Irish response can, and should, only be. We have an important role to play as a neutral country that has never invaded any country, as a member of the Security Council and as a neutral actor. There is a difference between the rhetoric of conflict coming from the British Tory Government that seems to be posturing for conflict and is bullish in how it presents itself and has been for the last few months, and the behaviour of others in the EU, such as the French President, Mr. Macron, who are demonstrating other forms of leadership and are seeking diplomatic solutions. That is what we need to be doing. Right up until the very last moment, we need to be looking for diplomatic outcomes. Dialogue must be at the very forefront of what we do and all the steps we take.

Difficult questions remain in relation to our response and in relation to what we do now that these bullies and thugs have encroached upon a sovereign European nation. The difficult questions relate to our own complicity both as a European nation and as the Irish nation. There are two challenging aspects of it. The first is the idea of the need for unified sanctions. The sanctions seem to be targeted at the Duma and at Putin's allies. They need to be tough and hard. I note that the Ukrainian Foreign Minister has called for sanctions. I believe he stated that we need to hit them, hit them hard and hit them now. That needs to be the approach. There seems to be a belief both from the US and the EU that there can be a crescendo effect to sanctions. The idea is that as the Russian Federation moves into independent territories, the sanctions increase a bit more, and if the Russian Federation takes more steps, the sanctions increase even further. That approach will cost lives. If there are going to be sanctions, they need to be targeted. Sanctions must be fast, swift, prompt and severe. We need to make the Russian Federation, and those who sustain it and prop up Putin, the pariahs of old. We need to target them and hit them really hard.

The situation poses difficult questions for us. Fintan O'Toole's article in The Irish Timesyesterday stated that €118 billion was funnelled from the IFSC to entities linked to the regime of Vladimir Putin. There are genuine questions as to our own complicity in this in terms of facilitating these shell companies to funnel money back into the regime. There was talk of the Russian Federation's economy being the same size as Italy's. That is in real terms. We also know that the economy is far more vast than that and is built up by a network of oligarchs who fund these excursions and keep this power in place. The only way we can challenge them is by hitting them where it hurts, which is in their pockets and in their access to power and influence. We point to London too often when we talk about Russian money. We cannot separate from our own complicity. If they pull out of Russia, they are going to look to the IFSC, where they manipulate our own legal structures. We need to close those loopholes. I should think everyone believes we need to close them.

There is also the point that we are complicit by our dependence on fossil fuels. One of the most welcome moves yesterday was Germany's decision to close down the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Putin knows that Russia has Europe by the clutches because of our dependency on its gas and oil. When previous wars happened, one of the things that happened was a ratcheting up of industrialisation and military industrialisation and the spend that goes with it. Now there is an opportunity to see that we have a crisis of climate and complicity when it comes to empowering the Russian Federation. As we move away from our dependency on fossil fuels, including gas and oil, we remove the power that this regime has over Europe. We cannot seek to replace that by looking for the same two fossil fuels elsewhere. The response of the EU must be investing in clean energy and removing ourselves from the dependency on Russia's gas, oil and coal. I appreciate that in Ireland we are not as dependent as others are, but we are part of a European network. That needs to be taken away from Russia. I will conclude by stating that there still must be a space for diplomacy. Our response must be to remember who we are and to strive, at all points, to avoid a conflict that will cost millions of lives. Seeking diplomatic solutions must be our only approach.

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