Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I am aware of his own personal commitment to this issue from the meeting of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly yesterday, and so on. What is happening in Ukraine is quite appalling. However, we must remember that what happened in Georgia in 2005, and in Crimea in 2014, was appalling. Yet, the world stood by and allowed Vladimir Putin to get away with what he did in Crimea. I must ask why we are letting him get away with it now. Yes, we are introducing sanctions, and very punitive sanctions, but if Putin invaded a NATO country, Russia would be invaded back. Ultimately, it does not matter, in my view, whether Ukraine is a member of NATO. It is a democratic country in Europe. Eventually, we are going to have to go in and take Putin on. As dangerous, difficult, challenging and frightening as it is, the world is going to have to take this man on. If he gets away with what he is doing in Ukraine, it will be Romania or some other country next.

Like everybody else, I stand in solidarity with the poor people in Ukraine who are fleeing their homes. I think of the people in Ukraine with disabilities, including adults with disabilities and parents of children of disabilities. We see the pictures on the news of people in railway stations trying to get on trains. Unfortunately, in these cases it is a case of survival of the fittest. We think of what happened in Germany in the 1940s under Hitler and the Nazis. It is the poorest and the most vulnerable, the people with ailments and disabilities, who are left behind. Unfortunately, they are the people who are not mobile, who cannot run and who are not in a position to evacuate themselves and flee. In my view, the world has questions to ask itself. We are at a pivotal time and we must take more decisive action than we are taking currently. Clearly, what is being done at the moment is not working.