Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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Your Excellency, President Zelenskyy, Taoiseach, Tánaiste, Members of Dáil and Seanad Éireann, Ambassador Gerasko, distinguished guests and friends of Ukraine. A Uachtarán Zelenskyy, tá fáilte mhór romhat i dTeach Laighean, ionad Pharlaimint náisiúnta na hÉireann. Is mór an meas atá againn ort féin agus ar mhuintir na hÚcráine, agus ar an seasmhacht agus ar an diongbháilteacht atá léirithe agaibh chun bhur dtír a chosaint ar an ionróir.

President Zelenskyy, you are most welcome to Leinster House – our national Parliament. I would also like to welcome the First Lady. Mrs. Zelenska is a woman who has become a symbol of Ukrainian dignity and resilience. She is a model for women world-wide.

We gather in solidarity and admiration for you and your people. War is a human tragedy. It destroys lives, uproots families, and leaves scars that endure for generations. War is never a solution, and Ireland knows this truth. Our own history teaches that dialogue, however difficult, can bring peace. The Good Friday Agreement was born from decades of pain and division, yet it proved that even the deepest wounds can heal when people choose negotiation over violence. That lesson gives us hope for Ukraine.

Today, we meet in solemn acknowledgement of the ongoing war against your country - an illegal attack on a sovereign nation, an assault on international law, and a violation of human dignity. Every missile and bullet has shattered lives. Parents mourn children lost. Families endure displacement and uncertainty. Futures have been stolen. No words can capture the suffering of your people. We watch in horror as drone attacks escalate, as your country's infrastructure is ravaged, and at acts that defy all principles of humanity.

The global community must stand united in condemning this war. We must continue to provide refuge. We must provide humanitarian aid but, most of all, we must demand accountability for war crimes.

As a militarily neutral country, Ireland is not, and will never be, morally neutral in the face of atrocity. Our neutrality is a commitment to peace, not indifference. Together with our EU partners, Ireland will stand firm behind Ukraine to ensure Russia ends its aggression. The Irish, who themselves have lived through the trauma of immigration and war, have opened their hearts and homes to the thousands of Ukrainians who now live and work among us. Your people enrich our communities and share their culture, even though their hearts are still with Ukraine.

Ireland’s journey to peace was long and arduous, but it succeeded because people persevered in the belief that peace is the only solution. The same possibility exists for Ukraine.

World leaders would do well to reflect on the powerful words of John F. Kennedy, an American President born of Irish emigrants, a man whose family left these very shores from New Ross, my home constituency of Wexford, as he declared with unwavering conviction in his inaugural address, "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”

President Zelenskyy, we hope for, and look forward to, the day that Ukraine can celebrate peace. We stand with the Ukrainian people in solidarity, in friendship and in hope. May your courage and the strength of your people lead to a just and lasting peace.

I now invite you to address both Houses of the Oireachtas.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy:

Thank you so much. Ceann Comhairle, Cathaoirleach, Deputies and Senators, dear friends and dear Ireland, thank you for your attention to Ukraine and for the fact that Ireland has truly stood the test of time. Thank you for providing a home and protection to our people when they needed it most once the war broke out back home.

While in some societies, the fatigue from news about the war is growing, we do not feel that your voice, the voice of Ireland, is turning quieter. Thank you.

Our peoples, Ukrainian and Irish, are among the few in Europe who spent centuries fighting for the right to remain themselves. And now, for nearly four years of Russia's full-scale war against our people, our children, the most devastating war for freedom in Europe since the Second World War, Ireland has stood firmly and clearly for our independence and for a just end to this war. Thank you for your steadfast support, for these years of standing with us. Thank you for not losing faith in us, just as we do not lose faith that the day will come when we will welcome all our friends to Ukraine in peace and when we will welcome home all our people who were forced to flee back to a peaceful Ukraine, back home, and we are working to make it real.

This morning here in Ireland, our team delivered a full briefing following the meetings in the United States. We are fully engaged in negotiations and we are only stepping up our efforts. Our team is now looking ahead to the next very important meetings. Today Ukraine is closer to peace than ever before and there is a real chance, but we must seize this chance fully, the whole world, not just one or another powerful country. Ukraine wants peace.

Ladies and gentlemen, one strong country can start a war; another strong country can help to stop the war. But to restore justice and defend what is right, we need a community, a world, made up of many different nations. It is the community of nations that decides, united by shared sentiments, shared aspirations, a shared desire for justice. It is a community of nations that makes peace truly lasting. Geographically large or small, politically influential or playing a different role, economically powerful or not, when these different voices stand together on the side of justice, on the side of free people, there is only one possible outcome: peace and justice must prevail. When you have a true community of nations on your side, you cannot be crushed and your rights can be restored.

No one can break the world alone, not even Russia, not even with its few buddies. No one can lie to the entire world forever, not even Putin. No one can stand against everyone else, and that is the truth.

It is also true that one can inspire everyone else, and that is why Ukraine is fighting for every voice in the world, for every community in every region. We are trying to reach every heart, to answer every doubt, to counter every accusation with facts, and we are searching for and finding friends wherever we can. We have managed to unite the majority of the world, and that unity has become our main weapon in protecting life. We have kept the world's attention, and that gives us time to resist Russia's attempts to destroy us. We are involving everyone we can in diplomatic efforts, and that is the best path forward.

It is a great honour for me to stand here today, in a country that understands the price of freedom better than many in Europe, better than many in the world, and that shares our belief that every voice counts, every nation matters.

Ireland is doing so much to help others understand why it is important to stand together and to remain a community based on shared values. Thank you for that. We will continue to co-ordinate with you and with everyone who can help and to inform all those who can influence the outcome, so that one day we can achieve what many still believe to be impossible, not just silence instead of bombs, not just clear skies instead of Russia's drones and missiles, and not just a pause between strikes but lasting peace, guaranteed security and true justice.

Human memory is often short and attention can be fleeting, so please remind the world every time it is needed that Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a criminal and unprovoked act of aggression, which cries out for justice. It happened for one reason only, because Russia wants to treat Ukraine as its property and Ukrainians as if they belong in its backyard like livestock. No politician in Europe or somewhere else should forget everything we have achieved together through our defence.

I urge you to oppose any decision that weakens pressure on Russia for this war as long as war and occupation and the propaganda of hatred continue. All the pressure on Russia must remain in place, so that Russia does not believe it will be rewarded for this war with stolen Ukrainian land or thousands of kidnapped Ukrainian children. Please continue to support all efforts to make the tribunal for Russia's aggression a reality, so that one day it truly begins its work and so that Russian killers cannot freely travel the world as if they have done nothing wrong.

We must protect the unity that has existed since 2022 - a unity of different nations united in the protection of life and justice. We are speaking about the future. There is no good future for Europe without this unity. Ukraine wants to stand together with those whose history, values and struggle reflects our own. We want to stand alongside Ireland in the European Union as equals, and I am confident that this will happen. Europe cannot run away from its own values. It must stand up for them, and Ukraine is doing exactly that today on Europe's behalf.

Ladies and gentleman, dear dear Ireland, please remember your voice matters, from Ireland's vote at the United Nations to the words in your media, from your thoughts here in Dublin to every home in the global Irish community around the world. That is millions of people who can influence hundreds of millions more. When the most powerful apply pressure the global community helps to guide that pressure in the right direction. Just as there is no capital in the world unaware of what St. Patrick's Day is, there should be no capital that does not know that the Irish together with the Ukrainians and many other nations are united for real peace - a peace without humiliation and based on something truly real, on shared values.

Those values are not business as usual, not appeasement of killers, not turning a blind eye to what has happened. Among those values is this: the aggressor must be held accountable for what was done. Please take an active role in making the tribunal for this aggression a reality, not just joining but pushing, working, insisting that justice might begin with accountability. Please continue to advocate for every form of sanctions against Russia. It is time for Russian assets to serve the cause of peace, to help defend and rebuild Ukraine. This long overdue decision must be implemented.

Please, call on everyone in the world to help return all the children abducted by Russia and all the prisoners still held in Russian jails and camps, many of whom have been there not just since 2022, but since 2014 when Russia launched its hybrid war against us and occupied our Crimea. This has gone on far too long to simply close our eyes and turn the page on Russia. Without a just peace hatred will not fade; it will continue to smoulder and provoke new and new violence.

History has seen this before. This time it must be different. We need real peace. Help us achieve it and never lose your faith in Ukraine.

Thank you, thank you, Ireland. Glory to Ukraine.

Mark Daly (Fianna Fail)
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A Uachtarán Zelenskyy, a Cheann Comhairle agus a dhaoine uaisle, President Zelenskyy, Ceann Comhairle and distinguished guests, on behalf of Members of both Houses and on my own behalf, I thank you for being here today at the heart of our democracy, and for the address delivered to this joint sitting of Dáil Éireann and Seanad Éireann.

In 2022, when I had the privilege of given the closing remarks to your online address to these Houses, I said that as we sat here in Dublin, missiles and bombs were descending on the innocent women, children and men of Ukraine. I could not have imagined that three years, seven months and 26 days later, Russia’s war of aggression would be continuing to visit unspeakable atrocities on the people of Ukraine.

A month after that address I travelled to Ukraine with the then Ceann Comhairle. When we met with you in your office I wondered how you remained so calm amid all the chaos. There we witnessed first-hand the harrowing consequences of Russia’s war.

In Bucha we saw the mass graves of those killed by the Russian army. In Irpin on the outskirts of Kiev we met with those citizens who had turned soldiers and who had stopped the Russian army and turned them back.

Mr. President, during your inauguration speech in 2019, you told your officials not to put your picture on the walls of their offices but to put pictures of their children on the walls of their offices and to look at them each time they made a decision. This, a chairde, cuts to the core of our Irish and European values, values that promise freedom, integrity and equality.

There are children in Ukraine who have never known a day's safety, never known a day's peace, whose parents go to sleep in often freezing temperatures without power or heat, wondering if they will be awakened by air raid sirens. They continue to endure that terrible reality. There is no explanation that you can give a child for what is happening in Ukraine. That is not because they are too young to understand; it is because what is happening is wrong and cannot be justified. In the 21st century, in a world facing many challenges, we cannot accept the devastation that has been put upon innocent children and their families, some of whom are here today, who had to flee their homes and their livelihoods and journey thousands of kilometres into the unknown.

We must resist aggression at every turn. Our guiding star must be international law and rules-based order, with respect for sovereign nations. It is the only way we can ensure a stable and just Europe, a Europe that rose from the ashes of conflict in pursuit of a peaceful future. There must be peace; it must be a lasting peace. We on this island have known violence and struggle, a violence that devastated our communities, but we now know peace. Ireland and Europe have stood with and will continue to stand with Ukraine, and we hope Ukraine finds a just peace in the near future.

As Cathaoirleach of Seanad Éireann, and on behalf of the Members of Seanad Éireann and Dáil Éireann, I thank you for being here today, Mr. President, and I thank all those who made it possible. A Uachtaráin, thank you for addressing the Houses of the Oireachtas. Go raibh míle maith agat. Slava Ukraini.

Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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Thank you, Senators and Deputies. Before I conclude the sitting, I reiterate that it is an honour to have you here with us, President Zelenskyy. Our previous address was on a big screen. I thank the Members for their co-operation, all the staff who have made this possible, and your own detail, who have had seriously good engagement with us. Thank you to the First Lady, Mme Zelenska, who has accompanied you.

Members, the Dáil is now adjourned until 6 p.m., but I ask that you please stay in your seats until the President has left the Chamber. Thank you.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy:

Thank you.