Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I, too, welcome the ambassador and her colleagues. These must be very difficult days for her, her family and her country. It is respectful and good of her to be here with us this evening.

As we reflect on how we got to where we are and where we may be in the coming days, hard questions need to be asked of ourselves as a country and of the EU. Since 2015, there has been a pathway leading to where we are now. In the last few weeks, in particular, I have been struck by how relatively irrelevant the EU institutions seemed to be, as President Macron, Chancellor Scholz, President Biden and Secretary of State Blinken all tried, and I must give them credit for having made that effort, to bring sense to this and try to get us away from the brink. However, President von der Leyen and Mr. Borrell were quite absent in terms of taking initiatives or pushing forward an EU agenda, reliance or ambition in regard to the security of Ukraine. That is not good. Yes, I acknowledge there is a package of aid approved, but the notion is that it will then wait for an emergency summit, which has been called for tomorrow evening. It is well past the time for having an emergency summit to discuss sanctions.

The sanctions announced today are relatively minor. The defence given is that they are minor in the context that there will be more. When will there be more? What more action do we need to know what the intent of the Russian President is? In addition, the sanctions target MPs in the Russian State Duma, or whatever the equivalent is. They do not target the president himself. I am sure there is a logic to or a reason for that, but it is like telling every backbencher in this House that he or she is a target and the Government is not. Those who make and enact the decisions are let away. That is a flavour of it, and it is a flavour of my frustration. The entire basis of the European Union is that we would not go back to where we were in World War Two. It is the foundation on which everything it has done is based, yet here we are with a very serious situation once again on the Continent and the EU is behind the curve. The EU has been behind the curve in terms of proactivity and dealing with this.

Second, we all have to ask hard questions as to why the EU has become so dependent on Russia for energy since 2015. That is why ordinary people will have to pay the price of this in the coming hours and days in terms of fuel costs and fertiliser costs, on top of so many other costs. We must ask ourselves the hard questions there too. Deputy O'Dowd was right when he referred to former President Trump, who cheerled Vladimir Putin throughout his term. While that cheerleading was happening, it appeared that the Russian forces and Russian arrogance were building. President Putin was getting more and more trenchant in his views of where Russia should go, yet there was very little opposition. Very little effort was made to try to stop him, to try to put a halt to his ambition and to try to stop the situation that we have today arising.

Hard questions have to be asked and we have to learn the lessons from that. It is little consolation to the people of Ukraine who are facing such an uncertain time and uncertain future. We also have to get serious about sanctions and stop faffing around, tinkering at the edges. We are either serious or we are not. That includes hard calls to be made in this country too, regarding banking and financial arrangements. I know the Minister of State is engaged in the case, but I was struck by the small matters that make such a difference with regard to visa participation.

I acknowledge the work done by the Minister and the Department of Foreign Affairs on surrogacy to try to ease the burden. There are other things that could also be done to assist our citizens there.

We have to hope that tomorrow night's summit presents us with a new European Union attitude and determination based on strong action rather than hope. Rather than words and wraps on the knuckles we hope it is based on something that means something and will change what may be an inevitable course. The Minister of State with responsibility for European affairs and the Taoiseach need to tell the summit that 100 years on, a small republic crafted and created in opposition to a superpower of the day would stand up for other small republics and for the national aspirations of others, and would defend those aspirations, borders and people in the same way we looked to other countries throughout the world to defend us 100 years ago. We are in the European Union but we are Irish and we have a proud history of standing up to oppressors. Let us make it relevant to the people of Ukraine today.

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