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

The Deputy will be aware that in my capacity as Minister for Defence we had significant discussions on this issue in this House. I outlined substantially the amendments that we were considering, essentially to end the veto. I do not accept Deputy Murphy's point about the General Assembly. I dealt with that before as well. Essentially, it is the Security Council that has the veto. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has caused a fundamental change in the world order and the way Russia is behaving. China and all the members of Security Council have a veto. It was very evident to us when we were on the Security Council that we had to work extremely hard and with great challenges to get humanitarian corridors opened, for example, to northern Syria during that war to make sure that millions of people would get access to humanitarian aid and, likewise, in respect of Ethiopia. We took a lot of heat for insisting on humanitarian corridors to Ethiopia during the war in Tigray. The Deputy may recall that during our time on the Security Council, when we fought to bring a resolution that would link climate and security together, it was vetoed by Russia. I do not think any decisions we take in respect of a peacekeeping mission should be subject to a veto by the likes of Russia. It is crazy.

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