Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Certainly, Ireland will accept refugees from Ukraine. Whatever we do will have to be done on a European basis as part of a European agreement. It is fair to say that we were one of the leading countries in the EU when it came to accepting refugees from Afghanistan. This is a European country. It is much nearer. There is a significant Ukrainian community in Ireland already. We will be willing to accept people but that will have to be agreed on a European-wide basis. We will be happy to step forward as a country in that regard.

I must entirely disagree with the Deputy on any suggestion or allegation of a NATO escalation. That is not what happened here. In 2014, Ukraine pressed forward for democracy and decided that it wanted to be on a European course. It is an independent country. It has the right to decide to join the EU or NATO if it wants to. That is not our business; it is Ukraine's decision. When that happened in 2014, Russia and Putin seized Crimea and Sevastopol. It is now happening again in the Donbas region. That is what happened in Moldova in relation to Transnistria. It is what happened in Georgia as well. It is not an issue of NATO aggression. It is Russian aggression. It happened in Moldova and in Georgia and it is happening in Ukraine now. Let us not pretend that there is any equivalence.

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