Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for his indulgence on this. The proposal is to bring us into line with European countries in regard to those who would fall foul of the various sanctions regimes that have been brought in. I support that and I understand where that is coming from. I do have certain reservations about it as well. The rushed nature of it is something we should try to avoid in the future in any of these situations.

A year ago Russia invaded Ukraine. The Russian aggression there has been immense, extreme and has caused a huge humanitarian catastrophe for the people of Ukraine who have been scattered across Europe. Many of them have come here to Ireland and they are very welcome here. I listened to the radio this morning and it was said that there are more than 1 million Ukrainian people in Germany and over 1.5 million in Poland. Sometimes we think that an awful lot of people have come here. While many people have come here, when compared to many other countries, we need to recognise that we are playing a small part. Yet, it is a very important part and an important role that we play.

The issues in regard to sanctions and using sanctions as a means of putting pressure on the Russian regime are important and can be used effectively and efficiently. However, we have to be careful that this does not have a detrimental effect on ordinary Russian people and they are not the ones to suffer from this. It has to be targeted at the people in the higher echelons of the Russian Government, such as Putin and those around him, as well as the oligarchs and the huge wealth we see them display. In Russia, in effect, a new model of imperialism has developed over the last number of decades. It is an extremely fascist and repressive state and that needs to be recognised and acknowledged.

Deputy Boyd Barrett raised the issue of other states that are equally repressive and fascist, but which we do not treat with the same sense of urgency. That is something we should all reflect on. It is certainly something Europe needs to reflect on, particularly in its attitude towards what happened in Yemen over the past number of years, as well as with what happened to the Palestinians and the Israeli situation. We need to correct ourselves in regard to these double standards which continually come up in respect of all that. With that said, it is important from a European perspective that all members of the European Union have the same sets of standards and rules in place in this situation, and hopefully in others as well, where sanctions can be put in place. The same rules should be put in place for them.

A lot of money passes through the International Financial Services Centre. There are many shadow companies and various other institutions and regimes. We have to be vigilant about how they can be used to benefit some of these very wealthy oligarchs that are very close to the people who are causing such terrible devastation across all of Europe.

I want to go back for a moment to some of the comments that were made about the people who come to Ireland and indeed about the many Ukrainians who have come here. They are very welcome and will hopefully be an asset. They already are an asset to many communities and, hopefully, they will be an asset to more communities across the country. Reference was made to people who come here without passports. It is important to point out that over 40% of refugees across the world leave the countries they come from without a passport. They cannot get one and that is why they travel. In many cases, they have to get false passports and documentation in order to travel on to the countries they need to go to. In most jurisdictions, it is a worse offence to have false documentation than it is to have no documentation. Therefore, they turn up and say they have no documentation. That is often what happens and that does not mean these people are somehow or other trying to cheat the system. It actually means the system they have come from is so defunct and so terrible that they were forced into that position. It is important to recognise that.

The primary issue we have to deal with here is what has happened over the last 12 months and the huge upheaval that has caused across Europe, which is something we all have to take seriously. Of course, this is the first time in decades and almost the best part of a century that Europe has been the centre of this type of situation where we have seen a war of this nature visited on people. However, it is not unusual for these proxy wars to be happening on other continents and in many cases it has been European countries that have been in the shadows in respect of all that. We in Europe do not have clean hands when it comes to all these situations. That clearly needs to be recognised.

I want to finish on this point because I respect that I was late for the debate and I do not want to over-indulge. The primary thing we need to get right is that there needs to be consistency. There needs to be consistency with how we treat all these situations, or else we will not have any credibility in regard to any of them. That is what Europe needs to get its head around. I was at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe last week in Vienna, where there were huge debates by representatives from all the countries. Representatives from almost every country were united in their condemnation of what Russia is doing and indeed of what Belarus is doing in supporting them.

Indeed, representatives of many of the countries in attendance, in particular ones that are former colonies themselves, smiled and nudged one another when they heard certain states being so vigorous in their condemnation because they have short memories when it comes to how some of those countries had treated many of the countries that were represented in the room.

We need to get this right. We cannot live in the past. We have to step over all that and look to a future where there are firm laws and rules by which we will all abide, but also firm laws and rules we all recognise we have an obligation to drive home to ensure every country will be part of that. It cannot be just for the select nations we decide are, as one Deputy said earlier, the good guys rather than the bad guys. We need to lose that idea and move forward.

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