Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I just came from a meeting of the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence in which we had a presentation from Dóchas, the International Committee of the Red Cross, ICRC, and others. It was a really sobering and genuinely terrifying presentation. I wanted to wait until I heard some of the testimonies from those witnesses on the ground in Ukraine and elsewhere before I came into the Chamber for statements on the European Council meeting.

I will begin with the figure we heard several times today during different debates of the 10 million Ukrainians who will become refugees; 3.5 million of whom will move throughout European borders and elsewhere and 6.5 million of whom will be internally displaced. The scale of that is of a magnitude we cannot even comprehend. We then get into the detail of the first wave of refugees from Ukraine being people who had the means to go elsewhere, potentially because they had family, could travel and could support themselves as they did so. That is the first wave of refugees we have seen. It is the first wave of refugees who arrived here and elsewhere. They were extraordinarily welcomed and we need to make sure we meet their needs in any way we can.

I also heard today about the 6.5 million internally displaced refugees in Ukraine currently and the sociodemographic make-up of that particular group. They are people who are predominantly older and less well-off. They are the people who would not have access to different languages. They do not have supports in other jurisdictions. As they slowly make their way across the border in terror, fleeing bombardment as they do so, their needs will be greater and even more complex. As they make their way to Poland, Romania, Moldova and elsewhere, the European Union needs to be able to meet them but countries also need to be able meet their needs as they take them in. That will be a more complex group. That is really important to say.

There remains great uncertainty in terms of what happens next and how this will affect the flow of aid into Ukraine and other friendly neighbouring countries. To date, neighbouring countries that received refugees have done so in the spirit of camaraderie, solidarity, humanity, co-operation and kinship. However, they are working around the volunteer support shown by the public, local business, churches, schools and universities. This all needs to be co-ordinated. The European Union has a done a great job in welcoming people but now there needs to be a greater co-ordination in that regard.

As I listened to testimonies from that group of people who are making their way towards borders, I was very conscious of the impact the war in Ukraine will have on global food shortages and those who will be most impacted by that. Ukraine has become the breadbasket of the world, particularly in terms of Africa. Ukraine and Russia account for 30% of global wheat exports, 20% of global maize exports and 76% of sunflower oil supplies. Any disruption in production or supply could drive prices up, affecting millions already hard hit by high food inflation in their own countries. The conflict has brought shipments from Ukraine to a halt and paused Russian grain deals, and created uncertainty around sanctions. An estimated 13.5 million tonnes of wheat and 16 million tonnes of maize are frozen in two countries - 23% and 43% of their expected exports in 2021 and 2022. The majority of that was going to places in Africa.

At each previous pre-European Council statements debate, I raised the issue of vaccine inequity in terms of people in the developing world who have not been able to access vaccines to the same extent we have.

Global food supply shortages were already going to be an issue. Now, people who have not been able to access vaccines to the same extent that we have done will not be able to access food. There is a horrific humanitarian catastrophe right on our doorstep. This is the great global challenge of our time and we need to able to meet it.

To add even more doom to the scenario, in the Arctic yesterday the temperature was 30% above normal. In the Antarctic, it was 40% above normal, because of climate change. We have a humanitarian crisis on a scale that is incomprehensible. This should be a great challenge of our time. I cannot believe Members here are talking about a debate around our neutrality. Our neutrality will not mean anything when climate change is suffocating not only us but the global world.

We talk about how Germany is investing once again in its military and in its arms shipments and supplies. The European Union needs to be investing in its humanitarian budget to ensure that people in the global world are not starving. While there needs to be an industrialisation, it cannot be an industrialisation of a military capacity. It has to be an industrialisation based on humanitarian need, about how we get bread and wheat into people’s mouths, as well as about how we remove ourselves from fossil fuel dependency.

If, as we are constantly being told, and we are, in a wartime scenario, we require imagination. It requires a vigour to change and to remove the old people of old. Putin has his hands around our necks because we are depending on his oil and his gas. The EU pays him to the tune of €700 million per day. We need to crush that. Not only do we have a fear of him killing us quickly, he also has an impact on our global world through the impact that is having on the environment. There is now a great chance to remove ourselves from these figures of old and to meet the greatest challenges of our time, which are climate change and hunger. This all needs to happen in sequence.

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