Aisling Dolan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Today, 24 February, war was declared by Russia on the Ukraine, a European country of over 40 million people. This is war and the worst conflict in Europe since the Second World War. How many survivors of that war are alive? How long do we have living memory of a war that changed the course of history? We brought the EU into being to prevent this type of aggression that is now happening in Europe.

I studied history and as part of my degree it was clear the importance of leadership at times of crisis. How will we, the EU, fight for democracy? A European country is now invaded. We look out here and we see sunshine. In Kyiv, Ukraine, they are looking out and seeing bombing.

Economic sanctions were threatened. Have they been effective? Have they stopped this aggression? I welcome the update by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Coveney, in the Commencement matter that over €1.2 billion in macro-financial assistance has been offered by the EU. However, he also acknowledged that 14,000 people in Ukraine have lost their lives since 2014.

We have autocratic states and I ask for a discussion on the role of democracies. Under the World Population Review, Ireland is ranked as one of ten of the most democratic nations in the world. Our Oireachtas, what we have here, is one of the ten most democratic establishments in the world. However, it says under Bertelsmann Transformation Index, which is a German group, that there are now more autocratic states than democracies around the world. That is outside the OECD and within developing countries. There are more autocratic states and, in other words, democracy is losing. What will we do about that?