Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this however short the time. I stand, as I have already repeated, in full solidarity with the people of Ukraine. I deplore what has happened. Words do not convey it. We should do everything possible on a humanitarian level, as we are doing. I welcome the briefing that will take place later this week on the practicalities of the numbers of refugees coming to our country. However, I fully agree with what Deputy Boyd Barrett said that if the message from this is that we must increase our military spending then we are absolutely doomed. We speak today in a world where 44 million are on the brink of famine globally. In addition 23 million are just one step away because of wars or the direct effects of climate change, war, the inequality of power and the powers that be playing war games generally. That in no way takes from anything else and I wholly condemn what Putin has done.

The meeting this week, which we are not sure if the Taoiseach can attend and that is no reflection on him, is one where we should reassert our voice. That is that positive, strong, proactive, neutral voice that is not adding to the warmongers in the world because you cannot make peace with war. It is not possible. We need to use our voice, now that we have a seat at the UN Security Council, to call for a diplomatic solution. Whether we like it or not, we will have to sit with Putin or people on his behalf. Bad as things are now, they will get worse with a further war. It is in all our interests to find a solution. In my opinion the ingredients are there, whether or not we can trust him in terms of diplomacy. Ukraine has said that it will not join NATO, and so on, in a package of solutions.

In the meantime, I am worried by what an unelected member has said about the strategic compass that we passed without discussion that Europe must learn to speak the language of power. I think Europe has to learn to speak the language of peace. They talk about things being rule-based but then we must apply rules in an even-handed fashion. Saudi Arabia and Yemen, where we do not do that, have already been mentioned.

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