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

I thank the Deputies for raising those issues. To respond to Deputy Boyd Barrett in respect of what Ireland's place in Europe means, it means that from the outset of this crisis we have decided to take a proactive role in supporting a unified response from the 27 member states of the European Union to Vladimir Putin's assault on the Ukrainian people. As I said at the European Council meeting, it meant we wanted the most comprehensive, wide-ranging, robust set of sanctions that were possible. That was the statement I outlined, and I made it clear at the meeting as well. We supported the conclusions that had been put together by the European Union, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and other like-minded democracies that uphold universal values of free media, free speech, freedom of association, democracy, the territorial integrity of a country, sovereignty and self-determination. Those values are what European democracies support and we are going to be proactive in supporting them.

I take issue with the moral equivalence the Deputy draws, and has been drawing over successive weeks with other Deputies, between what Vladimir Putin is doing and the actions of the member states of NATO. It is fundamentally wrong.

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