Ms Alyona Shkrum:

Gabhaim mo mhíle buíochas leis an gCathaoirleach. Is mór an onóir dúinn a bheith anseo inniu. Now the hard part of my speech is truly over. It is an honour for us to be here today, and we recognise that this is an honour that is rarely given to a visitor or foreigner. Please believe me when I say that we greatly appreciate this honour. Our visit is yet another reaffirmation of the support that we have received from Irish people, Senators and everybody whom we have met in Ireland during the last horrible 111 days of war. Today, it is the 111th day, but believe me when I say that for Ukrainians all over the world, the war has felt like one horrible never-ending nightmarish day. Each morning when we read the news, no matter where we are, we feel like that nightmare continues. Last night, three more civilians were killed by Russian forces. One of the fatalities was a boy aged six who was killed while he slept in his bed by a Russian missile that hit Donbas. Last night, while I was in Dublin, the region of Dnipro, which in the eastern part of my country, was shelled by Russians using an artillery system called Hurricane. This is the region where my grandmother lives. She refused to evacuate and, fortunately, she is well and her house is okay. This is a horrible reality that I could never imagine would ever exist.

At 4 a.m. on 21 February, or 111 days ago, the war and Russian aggression started. I was in my apartment in the centre of Kyiv. What gave me the most fear was not that there were explosions going off over my head. This feeling was horribly familiar with what I heard my grandmother say when she talked to me when I was child about the beginning of the Second World War. My grandmother was five years old when the Second World War broke out. I can honestly say that I never really listened to her stories back then because I thought her stories about the atrocities that were committed during the Second World War had no place in my world, in my future or in a modern sanctuary in the middle of Europe. I did not really listen. I could not imagine that in our modern age of Geneva Conventions, international humanitarian law, the Budapest Memorandum, drones, cyberwarfare and satellites that we would actually have a dictator giving orders to kill and specifically target civilians in Europe, target children and bomb hospitals, kindergartens and normal residential areas. Psychologically, I was not ready for this.

Even though we knew that a war could happen, we were not ready to see that. I am still not psychologically ready to understand that 30 km from my apartment in which I live in the centre of Kyiv, in Bucha and Borodyanka - because it is only 30 minutes' drive away - we have found mass graves containing children and women who were raped and tortured by Russian soldiers, then burned and finally buried. This is a reality I still have trouble understanding in our modern world. I think that the politics of appeasement failed when the first missile hit the wing of a maternity hospital in Mariupol. We cannot understand that happening.Now Putin is going even further because he is planning to starve to death people on a number of continents in the world in order to re-establish his so-called Russian empire. We are not going to allow that to happen. This is something that takes the politics of imperialism and colonialism to a whole new level that we have never seen before because Putin and his soldiers are right now mining the Black Sea and blocking Ukraine's ability to take our exports of grain and food to countries all over the world, including countries in Africa, the Middle East and the EU. The UN has told us the politics of starvation and the possible food crisis and famine could affect more than 1 billion people in the world. When food is used as a weapon, I have almost no words to describe it. Unfortunately, Irish people know very well food can be used as a weapon. Unfortunately, Ukrainian people know too well food can be used as a weapon because this autumn we will commemorate 90 years since the man-made hunger that killed almost 1 million Ukrainians back in the 1930s. We should ensure together that this is absolutely the last time any dictator in the world and any country in the world uses food as a weapon. We cannot allow that to happen.

Putin made a mistake. He completely misjudged Ukrainians because while you can take a lot from us, you cannot take from us the right to govern ourselves. We are a stubborn nation, just as much as the Irish nation is.

The Cathaoirleach quoted the famous speech President Kennedy made in Ireland a long time ago. I will quote the poet he quoted, John Boyle O'Reilly, who said: "The world is large ... But the world is small when your enemy is loose on the other side". The Ukrainian world had become very small over the last 111 days. The world has shrunk for every mother who had to spend a night in a basement with her child when there were bombings in Bucha, Borodianka and Mariupol. The world appears to have shrunk for every woman who kissed goodbye to a soldier going to war at every railway station in Ukraine. It appears the world has shrunk for every family who fled Ukraine with just one bag of clothes to go abroad, perhaps to Ireland, not knowing when they will be able to come back.

It feels like the world has become very small to Ukraine but it also feels like the world has opened up a little bit. It has opened up, together with Ireland's help, with love, kindness, and solidarity which, honestly, we have never seen during the history of Ukraine. It is incredibly inspirational to see that. We are inspired by the way people in Ireland opened up their hearts and their doors to every refugee, to everybody who needed help. Ireland abolished visas for Ukrainians in the first week of the war and, believe us, Ukrainians know that.

We are very much inspired by Ireland's history, its strength and how it remained so humane during all those dark times because this is difficult for us to do at times. We are very inspired by this ability and the combination in the Irish character of hope, bravery and optimism. It gives us a lot of strength. Ireland's friendship and generosity will never be forgotten in Ukraine, believe us.

Ireland has literally set an example of a very high standard of moral leadership for every other country in the world, in particular for every other country in Europe, to follow. We ask Ireland to push even further. We hope Europe and the EU follows Ireland's high standard of moral leadership and example and we hope the EU gives us candidate status in the next number of days because it is our opinion that the future of a strong EU really depends on this vital decision. Ukraine will win this war.

Together with you I am sure we will win this fight for freedom against slavery, light against darkness and for our common democratic future. In Ukraine we saySlava Ukraini but today I really want to say Éire abú.