Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Deputies Boyd Barrett and Barry.

I will mainly focus my remarks on the question of giving the best welcome to those who are fleeing from Ukraine and coming to Ireland. Before I get to that, I want to make a couple of international points. Does the Irish Government have a position on the call from large trade unions in Ukraine and social movements for the cancellation of Ukraine's odious debt? It is immense; the foreign debt stands at $125 billion. The debt servicing expenditure is 12% of all the state's budgetary expenditure. In the appeal, they make the point that chaotic borrowing and antisocial debt conditionality was a result of total oligarchisation. Unwilling to fight the wealthy, the state rulers kept getting deeper in debt. Loans were issued under conditions of social spending cuts and the repayment forced it to economise on vital needs and apply austerity to foundational economic sectors. Ukraine is a very poor country. Debt servicing is contrary to rebuilding that state in any just way. The Government should make a clear statement calling for the cancellation of Ukrainian debt. That would be a real act of solidarity.

I would like the Government to make a statement about, or a criticism of, the so-called temporary suspension of 11 opposition parties in Ukraine. It is very concerning. While we would not share anything in common with these political parties, between them they got 18.3% of the vote in the previous election. It includes the biggest opposition party, which got 2.7 million votes. Of course, it is very likely that what starts out as a temporary measure becomes a permanent ban. We have seen that repeatedly with anti-democratic measures introduced at times of emergency.

I quote from the head of the Ukrainian socialist organisation, the Social Movement. Again, this group does not politically stand in solidarity with these parties that have been banned. It makes the point that the Ukrainian Government telling several million Ukrainians that the parties they voted for are beyond the pale is unlikely to motivate them to keep fighting the invaders at the front either. It undermines the struggle against the Russian invasion to send such a message and we need a statement by the Irish Government opposing this undemocratic measure.

The Government needs to step up and provide the funding for schools so that they can welcome the new intake of Ukrainian children who have had to flee war. We need to hire new teachers and special needs assistants, SNAs. We should start by offering proper full-time contracts for those teachers currently looking week to week for substitute teaching hours. We need extra counselling support, including psychologists, available to help children recovering from the traumas of war. There are many empty buildings near our schools, particularly church-owned buildings, which should immediately be brought into public ownership and used to expand facilities. These people need support.

My final point is about English language teachers, many of whom are currently very poorly paid and on precarious contracts in the private sector.

Instead of relying on these private companies, we need to expand the ETB English language teaching programme and provide classes right across the country, free of charge and with staff properly paid and on decent contracts.

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