Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank President Zelenskyy for joining us today and sharing with us the heartbreaking and inspiring story of his people's courage and endurance in the face of a grotesque and appalling aggression. It is fair to say that his words moved, inspired and shamed us and the rest of the world for not doing more sooner. Thankfully, because of the brave Ukrainian resistance there is still time.

In the long history of our own country we have never invaded another, but we know what it is like to have been invaded and to have the very existence of our national identity questioned. For these reasons, we feel for the idealism of the Ukrainian people, their defiance and their determination to face down a new evil empire. As a country, we are heartbroken watching the scenes we see on television every night. We are heartbroken to see what the people of Ukraine have had to endure for 42 days. We are angry at the appalling human rights abuses against men, women and children and the terrible loss of life. We promise that we will do everything we can to aid Ukraine in the struggle and to shelter the people of Ukraine. We will stand by them in their greatest hour.

The abolitionist and civil rights leader, Frederick Douglass, liked to quote our own civil rights leader, Daniel O'Connell, who he met here in Dublin. He said the history of the Irish people could be "traced like a wounded man through a crowd, by the blood". Today the history of Ukraine can be traced through its villages, towns and cities, by the suffering of its children, women and men, by the blood.

Today, President Zelenskyy showed a burning desire for freedom and self-determination, democracy and liberty, things we enjoy and sometimes take for granted. He showed a desire for a European future for Ukraine, a place in that common European home that we helped to build, and we endorse that desire and support the Ukrainian people in their wish to join the European union.

A little over 100 years ago, the woman who is perhaps Ukraine's greatest national poet captured their dreams of freedom and courage. Her words still resonate today.

I shall sow flowers of flowing colours,

I shall sow flowers even amidst the frost,

And water them with my bitter tears.

Know that the abandoned fire of your songs will burn forever in the world, it will burn at night and will burn at the daytime, it will burn forever.

We also have a message for the aggressor, for President Putin, his Government, his diplomats, his collaborators and his apologists, here and abroad.Over the past 42 days, you have violated the human rights of another sovereign people, your neighbours, your friends, your so-called Slavic brothers. You have raped and defiled the very principles of common humanity which bind us together in peace and harmony. You have betrayed your own people and your own country's rich and proud history, and your own resistance to oppression over many centuries.

We here have no quarrel with the people of Russia. We particularly admire those extraordinarily brave people who continue to oppose and protest this war on the streets of Moscow and St. Petersburg.