James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted to see this motion coming through the House and being brought by the Government. I am speaking in support of it, as are my party and the Government. I have long raised questions in this Chamber and elsewhere as to the actions of certain states, particularly Russia. It is not so long ago that I was engaging with the Minister on the Russian elections, the treatment of Alexei Navalny and other opponents, and what I saw as an attack on democracy that played out in Russia. We saw similar activity in Belarus, where we have sympathy for the exiled opposition candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who has Irish connections. In Poland, Hungary and other places we have seen attacks on democracy,the rule of law, academic freedom, media freedom and freedom of expression. All the norms that western liberal democracy might have come to take for granted in the past 20 or 30 years have been eroded and attacked. Perhaps the final frontier of conventional military warfare was then engaged in recent days, much to the horror of all in this Chamber I hope and certainly of myself and the Committee on Foreign Affairs, of which I am a member.

I heard Deputy Flanagan speak earlier and I have been corresponding with him in recent days as well about the position of the Russian ambassador. I note the Government’s position on that and I realise there are complications but I want to say, and I have said this in the committee, when the ambassador came before us he misled the committee to put it mildly. He laughed off our concerns and described them as a James Bond conspiracy. He spoke about the idea of Russia invading Ukraine as being insane. I asked him how insane it was when Crimea was invaded six years previously and they have gone back and done the same thing again. It is abhorrent that such contempt was shown to the committee, the Dáil and Irish sovereignty.

I will speak to the issue of Irish sovereignty on a related point and again I recently raised this in the committee and in other media. Our concept of neutrality is outdated. We have a sacred cow and it is a traditional idea that we would shy away from any conflict or confrontation. I appreciate that provides us with something of a position as an honest broker but it is also outdated in a world where warfare does not always come with tanks crossing our borders. Warfare comes with marine presence in our exclusive economic zone; a cyberattack on our national health system; interference with data lines, communications and transmissions, be those under the sea or in data centres scattered across the country; interference with our economic interests and by threatening and jeopardising investment in the country; and by disrupting elections and the free expression of people at the ballot box, be that through referendums or elections. All of those factors play into the new and modern hybrid warfare and I am convinced we have been subject to that by Russia and others who have sought to interfere in many ways. Why do they do that? They do that because it is in their economic and political interests. Anything that can disrupt a western state is positive for certain countries that are outside of that alliance. It is as easily and simply done as interfering with social media and running reverse algorithms, as has been done repeatedly and this has been well-documented in votes such as Brexit and the 2016 US elections. I firmly believe this has happened on many occasions here also and I do not see it as being particularly contested that this has happened. It is time to think long and hard about our position, about how we defend ourselves and about how we recognise the forms of attack that can come into being. I suggest that the State has been already subjected to this.

I listened to some of the contributions from around the House earlier and there were some good contributions from all sides. I noticed a preponderance from the Sinn Féin benches to throw the ball back at the Government about various accounts and mechanisms in the IFSC and how various different investments could be frozen or moved on. The EU is doing all of that and more and we are doing that as part of the EU. I would say to Sinn Féin that it is easy to suggest that something that can be done and the Government has already spoken about the complexity of some of these matters. It is complex to take on board the difficult financial tapestry of the IFSC; various funds and cross funds and legislation may be proposed that can tackle that. Perhaps that is a good thing and perhaps something should be done but it cannot happen overnight. What can happen overnight is a vote and Sinn Féin representatives in Europe have already spoken about their actions and votes. In fact, its MEP rejected a call from across Europe to safeguard Ukraine’s position, respect its borders and vindicate its independence before Christmas. It is disappointing for representatives of the same party to come into this House, having refused the opportunity and being among a small minority that did so in the European Parliament in December, and throw the ball back at the Government about various complex financial manoeuvres that they know full well cannot be taken overnight. There is hypocrisy in that, albeit I welcome their late conversion to the pattern. There may have been ideological alignment with previous regimes in Russia and that may be at the heart of that.

In any event, I commend the motion and I am delighted to support it. We need to take seriously the notion of modern hybrid warfare. The war that has been conducted is being conducted in cyberspace, social media and traditional media as much as it has been conducted on the ground in Ukraine. Who is winning is a function of who one is following, not necessarily of the facts on the ground. The facts on the ground are debated and I would not take for granted that Ukraine’s position is so strong. Russia made significant progress and that is of concern to us all.

See this speech in context