Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)

Go raibh míle maith agat. I start by expressing the Social Democrats' warm welcome for President Zelenskyy's upcoming visit and our absolute, unreserved condemnation of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which is an imperial war that has caused massive loss of life. We talk about the war in Ukraine and Russia's attack and sometimes I think there has not been enough focus on the number of people killed in that war, and particularly military - the soldiers on either side. We do not know the exact figures, but from what we do know they are absolutely shocking.

There are potentially 250,000 Russian soldiers dead with up to 1 million casualties, including wounded. In Ukraine, the figures are between 60,000 and 100,000 soldiers killed. That is at least 350,000 people, many of them soldiers, killed in that war. These are human beings whose lives have been wiped out by that war. Up to 1.5 million people are casualties of the Russian invasion, an illegal invasion, with many war crimes as part of that.

When we talk about the war in Ukraine and European defence, we need to keep those numbers in mind. The question that comes to my mind is how many more tens or hundreds of thousands of people are going to be killed in the Russian invasion and the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian war? When we talk about building European defence and this move to war and war preparedness in Europe, we really need to question how many Europeans are going to get killed in the ongoing war and how many people are going to lose their lives.

I reiterate our firm support for Ukraine's sovereignty and its territorial integrity. We call for and want to see further strengthening of economic sanctions on Russia. We believe the European Union and Ireland could be doing more to implement those sanctions. The use of military force is not the only way to challenge aggressors like Russia. The economic sanctions are also very important and the European Union and Ireland should be pushing harder on this by increasing the sanctions that are there.

In this debate, I want to talk about our concerns around the undermining of Ireland's neutrality, the push to war that is happening at a European level, and that greater European involvement in war and defence being termed as increasing the European Union's security and defence. I am deeply concerned about the direction the European Union is going in. Of course we have to stop the Ukraine-Russia war and that Russian invasion but war is not the only way to do it. We have to find peaceful ways to resolve this war.

I want to speak in short about and quote Ms Kaja Kallas, the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice President of the European Commission. Her comments deeply worried me when I saw them. This is from last week. Her role is to lead a more strategic and assertive foreign and security policy at EU level. She is responsible for strengthening Europe's security and defence. She points out that she is ensuring Europe stands with Ukraine and co-ordinating the work to build a European defence union. She said: "Wars are lost by whoever runs out of money or soldiers first." I want to repeat that statement. She said: "Wars are lost by whoever runs out of money or soldiers first." Wars are not just lost or ended by whoever runs out of money or soldiers. They are ended by interventions by states through the United Nations, different mechanisms, diplomatic measures and peace negotiations. I am deeply disturbed by that statement.

What is the future for ending the Ukraine war? Is it constantly pumping in more money and soldiers with more deaths? How many deaths are we going to reach? Will it be 500,000 or 1 million people who will die in that war? Ireland needs to play a role of peacemaker and call out that the only way to end wars is not just by pumping money into weapons or killing more and more people, where whoever loses decides they have lost the most amount, but by diplomacy, intervention and a human rights framework that we have signed up to as a country and are part of. I again urge our Government to pursue paths of peace, diplomacy, pressure and economic sanctions rather than just this drive to a deeper pumping of billions into war and this war machine that is being built up.

It is deeply disappointing that the European Union is suspending its fiscal rules and basically saying to countries that they should spend whatever they need to pump up defence spending. Yet when we see a housing crisis across the European Union and millions who are without a proper home, there is no such suspension of the fiscal rules to enable social spending for that. When we look at issues around the cost of living and basic services for disability around the European Union and when we look at poverty, there is no such relaxing of fiscal rules. I question why we are suspending fiscal rules for defence and pumping billions in and yet we are not doing that for people's basic standards of living. When we talk about the safety and security of our people, their welfare is the basic foundation block of building safety and security. I am deeply concerned that we are marching as part of a European drumbeat to a war. Ms Kallas said:

Next week ... [she] will present ... with the [European] Commission, a plan to improve military mobility [in Europe] ... this will include proposals to make our roads, bridges, tunnels, train lines, airports and other infrastructure projects able to cope with large scale military movements ...

We are preparing our European infrastructure for large scale military movements but we do not prepare for or invest in our European infrastructure to ensure our people have housing, healthcare, decent quality of services or even transport. It has to be worrying to see our European Commission talk about preparing our European infrastructure for large-scale military movements. Where are the large-scale military movements going to? What war are we going to be part of? What are we talking about here and where is Europe bringing us? It is absolutely a legitimate position to take that we are completely supportive of the European project, the European Union, cohesion, commonality and working together in a common infrastructure and institutions but also to hold a critical position on militarisation and, as I will argue when we look at the evidence, preparation for war in Europe and for an increased involvement of the European Union in that. We know throughout history that when the drums are banged for war and the talk is about war, a war inevitably happens. If we want to talk about peace and make peace happen, we need to invest in that as well.

In my remaining time, I want to talk about neutrality, the importance of Irish neutrality and of us being a country that questions the drive to war and - to quote Catherine Connolly, who was elected President - the "military-industrial complex" at a European level. A lot of people threw that phrase around as if it was some kind of joke or something that was not serious. This is very serious. I have set it out there. Billions are going into military but what is going into social services? The reason President Catherine Connolly made those points was that we have seen in the US an imperial war machine being built up over time. A point Noam Chomsky has made over and over is that if you create a military industrial complex where the economy is built around investment weapons, you have to use those weapons. They have to be used somewhere. The investment in weapons creates a necessity for the creation of a war and for those weapons to be used because otherwise, why are you investing in them? Why are you creating them? Why are you putting billions in? We need to question this, question where we are going and what war is Europe and Ireland in particular going to be part of on an active basis. We need to protect our neutrality and, in particular, the triple lock.

To finish, I want to talk about the issue of our welcome for the people of Ukraine and those fleeing the ongoing war.

It was deeply disappointing to see the cut in support for the hosts of Ukrainian refugees - the accommodation recognition payment, ARP, funding. We need to correct the idea that Ukrainians are coming to Ireland to scam the system. When we look at what happened, we see that Ukrainians are coming to seek refuge from a war where up to 100,000 of their fellow citizens have been killed. Looking at those refugees coming here from Ukraine, the majority are women and children. Almost 30% of Ukrainian refugees are children. They are in schools across the country and have become part of our communities. People have welcomed them and massive work has been done in schools and communities to welcome the people of Ukraine and their children and to integrate their children. It does require resources and the Government has to a certain extent put those in, but it is not sufficient. We do see positive stories across the country of people welcoming refugees and doing that positive community and integration work. It is a another side to the anti-immigrant sentiment we are also seeing. There is a quiet majority in Ireland who are absolutely supportive of us being a welcoming country and giving care and support. Indeed, they are a very active group.

However, our Government cut that payment and, unfortunately, it will worsen the housing crisis. Some have claimed that the payment is adding to the housing crisis. In fact, cutting it will add to the housing crisis. Where will the 35,000 Ukrainians who were hosted go if the funding to host is cut?

Irish Red Cross research on hosts has shown that over half of hosts said the recognition payment was a key factor in them being able to continue their host placement. The research also showed the reason the majority of hosts were motivated to do so was due to solidarity with displaced Ukrainians. Significantly, 91% of the hosts had a positive experience, 83% of them said they had played a role in helping their guests to integrate, and 70% of the hosts said their guests had successfully integrated into the community. However, half of the hosts said they were struggling with financial costs and many of them also said the hosting they were doing was in their home or was not in a property that would be rented out, so hosting is not taking from the rental market. The Irish Red Cross has called on the Government not to cut the payment but to explore the expansion of the ARP to provide accommodation for other displaced groups because it provides accommodation that would not necessarily be available otherwise because it is people taking others into their homes on the basis of solidarity. I also think that the cut in the accommodation period will lead to Ukrainian people being made homeless, as a result of the Government's shift to be seen as hard on immigration. There has been a lot of discussion on this and we have called out the Government, including Simon Harris, Micheál Martin and others, for taking this anti-immigrant shift. It is not just playing into the far right; it is also playing into and feeding a rising racism by suggesting that, somehow, immigrants are to blame for the housing situation and other issues when they are absolutely not and it is the Government deflecting from its responsibility.

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