Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I warmly welcome Ambassador Larysa Gerasko. I thank her very much for the great work she has been doing tirelessly on behalf of Ukrainian people and for highlighting what is going on at all times and in every forum. She and the people with her have worked diligently in very difficult circumstances. They are looking every day at people who have seen their lives torn apart, their families killed, children being separated and taken to Russia and awful, horrendous things that should not happen in the modern world. It should not be allowed to happen in a world where we would like to consider ourselves as being civilised. We have seen what politics can do here in Ireland in the way that good politicians and good religious people all came together and worked tirelessly to bring us peace on the island of Ireland. The ambassador has to witness on a daily basis what is happening at home with the horrors of war and invasion. It is very difficult for her. I really want to thank her for the work she is doing and keeping that going considering all the other pressures that are on her mind. I thank her for that and wish her well.

It really came home to me recently when a man with whom I am friendly produced his phone and showed me a picture of a house that was a heap of rubble. His English is good now. He has been working diligently to get good with English. He said, "That was my home". That man told me that when he and his wife had to leave Ukraine, they were exactly the same as anyone inside this Chamber. The had a house and jobs and their few belongings. They had a car. They had a pet. I heard people condemning pets and, of course, I heard what was said about the money, but I want to humanise this. They left their house and literally took what they could in a couple of bags. They left everything behind them. This man explained that they locked up their house. They locked what we call valuable valuables in rooms, locked the doors as well as they could and left everything behind. They left all they had worked for and accrued during their lifetimes. A couple of weeks ago, somebody sent him a picture of his home. A missile or bomb or whatever had hit their house. It is now a heap of rubble. There were tears in that poor man's eyes when he was telling me that is what he has in Ukraine. We cannot ever forget that.

We cannot ever forget this human side of what is happening and people being displaced by the horrors and the evil of one person who took it upon himself to invade Ukraine and to bring this horror and terror upon people who were literally going about their daily lives to the best of their ability. It is horrendous and it is horrible.

With the military situation in Ukraine now in a stalemate, there is predictably new pressures for peace talks. Reports of secret talks between the US and Russian officials have surfaced and public peace initiatives by China, the Vatican, Brazil, Mexico and others have been launched. Many leaders are strongly advocating for an immediate ceasefire. These initiatives seem to be based on a sense that the war is going nowhere but that, were it to escalate, could easily grow into a full nuclear confrontation. When Russia's foreign minister stated the Ukraine conflict was not so much about Ukraine as about the legal world order, he accurately identified the main obstacle to peace restoration, namely, the lack of agreement between the great powers on a legitimate world order. This statement underscores the need for a collective global effort to resolve not just the conflict in Ukraine but the broader issues plaguing our world order.

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