Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

I, too, welcome the visitors from Ukraine to the Public Gallery. The war in Ukraine is first and foremost a human disaster. More than 70,000 Ukrainian soldiers are thought to have been killed in the war so far. It is estimated that 12,000 civilians have been killed also. It is estimated that 116,000 people fighting for the Russian military are also dead in the fourth year of this war. That is a death toll of nearly 200,000 people as a result of this conflict, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of people who have been seriously injured by this war. It is estimated that 3.7 million people in Ukraine have been internally displaced and 7 million people from Ukraine have been globally displaced. These figures represent human devastation on an industrial scale. Each individual death is a catastrophe for that individual. The damage that has been done to Ukraine will last for generations. Even with the will of the whole western world to rebuild that country, there is no doubt there will be intergenerational damage done as a result of the war.

The war was started and prosecuted by Vladimir Putin. The Russian invasion is the cause of the war. It is an attack on the democratic and territorial rights of the people of Ukraine. Russia is responsible for the death and destruction. It is right that the international community has stood against Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Every country should have the right to democratically determine its own foreign policy, who it is aligned with and whether it is neutral. This is the definition of democratic autonomy and self-determination.

I believe that Ireland should help the people of Ukraine but that help should be humanitarian. We should provide medical help to those who have been injured, try to feed and clothe those who have been made homeless and try to rebuild that economy. We should also sanction Russia to pressure it to end the war.

Ireland has a competitive advantage when it comes to peace. Violence on our island has given us a competency for peace negotiations. It has given us a key insight that peace is built on negotiation and not war. Peace is built on justice. If the Good Friday Agreement teaches us anything, it is a recognition that there are two sides with a mutually exclusive understanding of what is happening and mutually exclusive objectives.

Today is not the day for it, but NATO and the EU have questions to answer over the destabilisation of that region in the past.

There has been a concerted effort by this Government to use the war in Ukraine to ditch Irish neutrality. I believe our neutrality may also be a casualty of that war. Historically, small countries have been sceptical of the intentions of military blocs. Military blocs most often orientate their military actions for their own economic objectives. We have seen that countless times, most recently with the US in the Middle East. Small countries such as Ireland would also have little or no influence in the decisions of these large military blocs. We would have to have young men and women fight those wars, but we would have no say over those wars. That would be a grave mistake as well.

Active neutrality allows for courageous, nonaggressive engagement with the rest of the world. Our record in UN peacekeeping, nuclear non-proliferation, decolonisation, significant aid to developing countries and supporting Palestinian self-determination has given us an internationally recognised position as an honest broker. Unfortunately, I do not believe that this Government actually uses this opportunity at all.

I believe that this Government is taking material steps to bin Irish neutrality. Two years ago, Micheál Martin came home from the Conference on the Future of Europe and said that he would be open to EU treaty change that would allow for the changes to the functioning of the EU. That treaty change would allow for military and security matters to be changed in how decisions are made. Right now, we have seen Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael actively seek to take apart the triple lock. There is no doubt that the Government has been outsourcing our international policy to the EU, and now it seems that the Government is also looking to involve us in EU military actions.

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