John McGahon (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The biggest fear in Russia and Putin's Moscow is a free and democratic Ukraine as then people in Russia might look to Ukraine and ask why they cannot have what Ukraine has when they share so many culturally close ties. I have absolutely no doubt Ukraine will be Putin's legacy but it will not be the legacy he intended. It will be the legacy of a stronger and more united European Union and European Continent than has been known before.

We can ensure Putin's foreign policy ends in total and utter failure. I do not say it lightly but we can do this by ensuring we see the accession of Ukraine into the European Union as soon as possible. The reasons for this are twofold. The European people over a number of years have demonstrated they stand up for European values as we know them and the European Union was devised so no war would again cross the European Continent. It is the reason the European Union came into being in the first instance.

There are 44 million people in eastern Europe looking towards the west, democracy and freedom and they want to be part of that. It would be a terrible sin for European countries to turn around and say they are okay and they do not really want Ukraine in the European Union. The European Union cannot say Ukraine fosters all our values and agrees with its sentiments but it does not want it in the Union. When a sovereign nation has been attacked in the way Ukraine has been by a murderous regime in Putin's Russia, we should look to ensure that if the Ukrainian people and its Government want to join the EU, all efforts are made to see that can happen.