Fiona O'Loughlin (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I did not know when I was going to see him next. To see Senator Dooley and former Deputy and current MEP Billy Kelleher being courageous in travelling to see for themselves the situation in Ukraine was inspirational. I have no doubt it was a dangerous journey. I am looking forward to having a discussion and listening to the Senator's experiences.

I salute the wonderful work that communities in Kildare and right around the country are doing to support Ukrainians. Collections of money and goods, cake sales and coffee mornings are being run by sporting clubs, communities and local businesses. They are incredible. People are gathering to take Ukrainians into their homes.

In 2003, I worked with the best group of people I could ever imagine when setting up the host town programme for that year's world games. The people in 180 towns right around the island of Ireland opened their homes and hearts to people from all over the world. I am seeing that happen again now. People are opening their homes to Ukrainians. I and the group of people with whom I worked 19 years ago spent all weekend gathering all the papers and information we had and bringing it all up to date to summarise how a community should prepare for a delegation. We are making that information available to the Irish Red Cross and any organisation that wants it to support those delegations.