Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Once again, we have further evidence of the Government trying to soften up public opinion to abandoning Ireland's neutrality. In respect of the Ukraine conflict, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Coveney, stated that we were not neutral. This begs the question of what neutrality means if we abandon it when there is a conflict. The Minister went on to say that people should talk to the Russians. We all condemn Putin's bloody invasion of Ukraine, but is it not precisely the role of a neutral country to be the voice on the international stage that argues for a peaceful resolution to conflict? I do not see how we can tally that with the repeated statements of various Ministers about rethinking neutrality and so on and the presence of representatives of the State at the Ukraine contact group, which is establishing military alliances to involve themselves in the Ukrainian conflict.

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