Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Richmond raised the issue of financial support. There are two elements to this. There is the current financial crisis facing Ukraine. I met with President Zelenskyy and I was the first Taoiseach to visit Kyiv. I just received a letter from the President thanking Ireland and me personally for supporting the historic decision of the European Council of June 23 to grant Ukraine the official status of a candidate country for membership of the EU. President Zelenskyy has written to us articulating his gratitude to Ireland for our proactive support.

EU leaders have now agreed to support Ukraine via exceptional macro financial assistance of up to €9 billion in 2022.

That is to try to enable Ukraine to deal with current budgetary issues.

There is a further issue around the reconstruction of Ukraine post the war or in parallel with it continuing. The Ukraine Recovery Conference took place in Lugano at which Ireland was represented by the Minister of State, Deputy Fleming. We joined in the signing of the Lugano declaration, which sets out seven principles to guide Ukraine's recovery process. The Ukraine-led draft of the recovery and development plan presented at Lugano recently is the overarching framework guiding the recovery process and allows for co-ordinated multi-stakeholder participation and partnerships.

We contributed towards non-lethal elements of the European Peace Facility, bringing our total support to approximately €44 million of the overall €2 billion in support provided under the four packages. We provided a further €20 million in humanitarian aid, as well as medical assistance and supplies amounting to €4.3 million. That covers some of what Deputy Murphy raised.

When I spoke to President Zelenskyy, we discussed Ukraine's economy and finances. There has been a 50% reduction in its GDP. Its economy is in crisis because of the war. Therefore, a number of strategies need to be deployed. It is not a simple matter of waiving debt. That is not the way these issues will be resolved. I also met with Ukraine's Prime Minister, Denys Shmyhal. He met with the International Monetary Fund, IMF, to develop a structured approach not just to the current budgetary issues, such as continuing to pay civil servants and keeping everyone going, but also to the reconstruction of Ukraine.

On Deputy Haughey's points about the Conference on the Future of Europe and treaty change, I would keep an open view. He is correct in that it will be very challenging to get agreement on a treaty change among the 27 EU states. I support the idea of making public health a shared competence given our experience of Covid-19, the procurement of vaccines at a European Union level, the establishment of the Humanities in the European Research Area, HERA, institute, and the need to upgrade the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, ECDC. There are a lot of lessons we should learn from the handling of Covid at a European level. The difference between the European Union's approach to Covid and its approach to SARS in the early 2000s, when I was the Minister for Health, is unbelievable in terms of the scale of co-ordination this time around compared with the previous time. I believe it worked, so we need to be open minded about that in terms of treaty change. Getting treaty change is a huge challenge in itself. We will keep the House informed of the development of detailed analysis by the Government and the Department of Foreign Affairs regarding the recommendations of the Conference on the Future of Europe. The Minister of State, Deputy Thomas Byrne, is actively working on that.

We have rent controls.

See this speech in context