John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)

I appreciate the combined answer there. I have a couple of comments. The Tánaiste will be aware of this and the briefings he gets will be far more sophisticated and informative than what I would be privy to, which is reading some of the international newspapers today, but it looks like Russia is mounting a further offensive into Ukraine. There is a lot of commentary in the press about what the US President's next step will be. The US President had said if Russia did not take certain steps, then he would not just consider sanctions but issue them. I do not know what the latest commentary is on that. We in the foreign affairs committee will be hosting the Ukrainian ambassador as well and doing our small piece in keeping that high on the agenda. I will be very keen and interested to hear what the ambassador has to update us on. I wonder about the unrealistic ultimatums that emerge from the US on a daily basis and how difficult that must be to deal with diplomatically. I imagine the uncertainty of that and the lack of a direct path make diplomacy quite difficult.

There was an impression at the outset of the new US Presidency that the President enjoyed a special relationship with the Russian President but now there are public clashes, so it is very foggy and unsteady from day to day. The US President is taking a very unsteady approach to diplomacy.

On sanctions, I am interested in what the Tánaiste is saying about the shadow fleet and I ask him to say a little bit more about that.

On global diplomacy, will the Tánaiste give us an insight into his view on the direction of travel of this conflict?

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