Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I greatly appreciate the opportunity to contribute to this very important debate and state my absolute support for this motion and the efforts the Government is making in this regard. In the few brief minutes I have before I share time with colleagues, I will hit on three points because we can have a discussion on so many different aspects that require attention.

The first call I will make is for the Irish Government, in particular, to work with European partners directly on addressing the very real disinformation campaign that is being used by the Russian Government to undermine the efforts of the government in Ukraine to protect its people and, indeed, the efforts of many people in Russia to access the truth.

That measures have been taken on Sputnik today to ban Russia from the airwaves in the EU is welcome. Much more can be done by social media companies in particular, however. It was easy enough for them to ban Donald Trump's Twitter account and yet they are not being half as proactive when it comes to tackling the propaganda from Putin sympathisers across social media. The fact that so many of these social media companies are headquartered in Ireland behoves us to lead in the European Union to take a much stronger line.

I appreciate the response from the Government to calls from many Deputies on this side of the House and, indeed, the other side, to expel the Russian ambassador and all 31 of his diplomats currently working in the Russian Embassy in my constituency of Dublin Rathdown. I fundamentally repeat that call, however. The Russian ambassador simply cannot be welcome in this State while Russia continues its illegal and bloody invasion of Ukraine.

I have a particular concern about the continuing presence of not one but two defence attachés in the Russian Embassy in this State, an embassy which has previously had diplomats expelled from on suspicion of espionage. The British Government only has one defence attaché. We have much more work dealing with the British on defence matters due to the memorandum of understanding as well as historic reasons and yet the Russians have two attachés. It is a very suspicious approach to take.

Unlike others, I fundamentally support and agree with every word spoken by and comment made by my party colleague, Deputy Flanagan, earlier in this debate. He is right; rather than taking advantage, he is talking about a realistic concern that many of us in this country - a majority, in fact, if one looks at opinion polling - have with regard to our security and defence capabilities. The fact that this country was the victim of a vicious cyberattack in August, by all accounts due to non-government operators with the protection of the Russian Government should be telling for all of us that we cannot simply continue to defend ourselves alone.

The final point I will make is that the decision taken by the Irish Government to only partially support the European package for the Ukrainian Government earlier this week was a complete and utter cop out. There is nothing stopping the Irish Government supporting the funding of the supply of lethal weapons to the Ukrainian army and people, every man and woman. If we were in Ukraine today, all the men sitting in this House would be called up to defend the country. That is what they are facing. They cannot defend it with lights, flags, solidarity and all the nice things that are worthy. What they really need is Javelin missiles and our support to ensure they can defend their homes and children. We have all seen the horrific images. Putin is now attacking civilian facilities and using cluster bombs. He is engaging in the sorts of war crimes I hope will one day see him in the Hague.

See this speech in context