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

The decision of the Putin regime to sanction the Taoiseach and other Ministers is a further worrying sign about what is happening to our reputation as a neutral country.

It has implications for our Defence Forces whose safety when deployed on missions is also linked to our reputation as a neutral country. We all condemn Putin's bloody war and the escalation we are seeing at the moment. However, the Government's association with and echoing of the NATO line, abandoning a position of neutrality which should be about upholding opposition to war and military solutions in dangerous conflicts like this, is undermining our neutrality and our international reputation as a neutral country. Ultimately it is endangering the Irish Defence Forces.

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