Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I second what Senator Kyne just said. Every word of that is important, but we also need to broaden this to address the terror many of us feel at what may be facing other parts of the world as well as a result of the threat to the grain supply coming out of Ukraine. We think of the populations of countries in the Middle East, such as Egypt, south-east Asia and north Africa. The populations of these countries are going to suffer enormously if the grain harvest from Ukraine cannot be got out of that country. The world is very big and we, sometimes rightly, feel we are very small. Listening to the debate about this and news of the proposal from Lithuania that there be some kind of coalition of the willing to get the grain out through the Black Sea past Russian warships, it is terrifying to think that might not be possible. We are facing into the next six or seven weeks when the grain will be ready. What is going to happen to it then? I was listening to former President McAleese on "The Late Late Show" on one occasion being sharply critical of the Russian ambassador and feeling at the time that approach was perhaps ill-advised. If there is ever an argument for a small, neutral country raising its voice, even in this dreadful time of hatred and degradation from Russia, surely we should be trying to create some diplomatic space to be a persuader, even in the midst of all this horror and for some recognition the less fortunate and most vulnerable people of the world must not be forced into a situation of hunger and starvation. I ask for a debate that will take on board fully the importance of the issues Senator Kyne has raised but that will also focus on the people in the other parts of the world who are really going to suffer if a solution is not found.

If I may, I would like to use the rest of my time to mention an important name, albeit one perhaps not as well-known to people in Ireland as it should be. The name is Titus Brandsma. I was in Whitefriar Street Church on Sunday, as was the Dutch ambassador, for a ceremony to mark the recent canonisation of St. Titus Brandsma, who surely is a hero for our times. He was a Carmelite friar who resisted Nazi propaganda going into Catholic, and indeed other, media. He spoke out strongly against the persecution of Jews and the infringement of basic human rights by the Nazi occupiers. He died in Dachau in 1942 by lethal injection. He was called "the dangerous little friar" by the Gestapo. The account of how it arrived at the Carmelite friary at Nijmegen to arrest him is quite harrowing. The remarkable thing is that the nurse who gave him his lethal injection returned to her faith because she observed that he had compassion for her. This man had an almost supernatural capacity to not hate his enemies, despite the horrors they were inflicting on him and others. He spoke out boldly for freedom in the midst of tyranny - freedom of individual conscience, freedom of religion and freedom of the press. It is appropriate that we honour people like him. They exist in our world, they come forward from time to time and they witness against the horror and depravity others wreak on our world. They should be celebrated for their inspiring example even if all of us, or most of us, feel we would never be able to follow that example.