Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

16. To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on the peace summit he attended in Switzerland. [27042/24]

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

17. To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on the peace summit he attended in Switzerland. [27046/24]

Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

18. To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on the peace summit he attended in Switzerland. [29219/24]

Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

19. To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on his attendance at the Ukraine peace summit in Switzerland. [29420/24]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I propose to take Questions Nos. 16 to 19, inclusive, together.

I attended the summit on peace in Ukraine hosted by Switzerland on 15 and 16 June, together with over 50 other world leaders and over 100 countries and international organisations. As world leaders gathered for this important summit to talk about peace, Russia continued its relentless attacks on Ukraine, including the targeting of civilian infrastructure. The summit agreed a joint communiqué which was signed by most countries participating. This important document, crucially, makes clear that any just and lasting peace must be based on the principles of the UN Charter, respecting Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence.

The summit also agreed a practical and tangible path for follow-up on areas where there is broad agreement, including food security, nuclear safety and the return of prisoners, children and civilians. At the summit, I also participated in a round-table discussion on humanitarian issues, especially the appalling and unacceptable removal, abduction really, by Russia of thousands of Ukrainian children from their homes and families. Some have been taken to Russia and some to temporarily occupied territories, where they are assigned Russian citizenship and sometimes adopted into Russian families and where efforts are made to undermine and overwrite their Ukrainian culture.

This is a war crime, and I am not sure the world is talking about it enough or perhaps is even aware of it enough. I refer to the scale of the number of children who have been kidnapped, abducted and robbed from their parents. Some young babies have been taken from their homes. They have been snatched away. The terror and horror of this do not bear thinking about. We need to acknowledge it and call it out. While we work for peace in Ukraine, we need to look at what can be done in the here and now, including how governments like ours can better support organisations like UNICEF and the Red Cross that are doing work in this area, how the churches may have a role to play and how some countries that continue to have dialogue with Russia can potentially play a role as well. I acknowledge that countries like Qatar have played a role in returning some children to their families. I believe that if a child were to be returned every day to Ukraine, it would take around 55 years for all these children to be returned.

While there was a very large turnout at the summit, and participants were present from all parts of the world, it is truthful to say there were notable absences from parts of Asia, Africa and the Middle East in particular, and not all attending opted to join the communiqué. It is therefore clear that we need to continue to reach out to the global south, in particular, to increase understanding of what is at stake. If Russia’s invasion is allowed to stand, none of us can rely on the basic commitment to territorial integrity and sovereignty promised in the UN Charter.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The Taoiseach is absolutely right to condemn the barbaric character of Russia's actions in Ukraine. The almost certain missile attack against a children's hospital is an absolute outrage. The kidnapping of children and the illegal and unjustifiable invasion are barbaric. There is no question about it. Really, Putin is sort of reminiscent of Stalin in his barbarism. There is no doubt, therefore, that we should all join together in condemning it. What I also find sort of incredible is the Orwellian doublethink of many of the people who attend peace conferences such as this one and say all these justifiable things about Putin's horrors in Ukraine, while at the same time, many of those same leaders are providing weapons, arms and political support to the State of Israel as it does things that are every bit, if not more, horrific to the people of Gaza.

As we speak, Israel is issuing evacuation orders in Gaza city and other places. Tens of thousands of people are fleeing in terror as the Israelis continue their barbaric assault. The medical journal, The Lancet, is now estimating that the real death toll, when all the bodies buried under the rubble are uncovered and we look at the indirect deaths resulting from the hospital and civilian infrastructure being destroyed and the famine conditions existing, is that 186,000 Palestinians may have been killed by Israel's genocidal slaughter. Yet many of the people at that peace conference continue to provide weapons to the state that is doing this. It is absolutely shocking.

"Double standards" is too weak a term for it; it is Orwellian. It means that the people who talk about territorial integrity or the UN Charter are just hypocrites. They do not give a damn about the UN Charter, children or hospitals being hit. If they did, they would be as horrified at what is being done by Israel as we speak, and as has been done for nine months, against the hospitals, the schools and the water infrastructure and at the tens of people being slaughtered. When is this hypocrisy going to be called out? To be honest, the strength of language is not enough. I admit the Taoiseach's Government is better than many, but we are not taking the sort of action necessary in terms of imposing sanctions and calling out the shocking and obscene double standards of the western governments arming the Israeli genocide.

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

First, I express my horror and outrage at the attack on civilian infrastructure and specifically the attack on the children's hospital in Kyiv by the Russian military. It is absolutely horrendous to see the pictures from that hospital. It certainly seems to be a clear war crime by the Putin regime. In relation to the summit, this was heralded as a peace summit. Obviously, though, it is not a summit that ended in peace and it was never going to be a summit that was going to end in peace. I will quote from Wolfgang Münchau, who is neither a radical leftist nor a Putinist of any sort. He wrote an article in The New Statesman in which he said very bluntly:

The ... “Peace Summit” on Ukraine failed – deservedly so. Of the 102 state representatives who gathered in Bürgenstock on 15-16 June, 22 refused to sign the final declaration. It was clearly not a peace summit since Russia was absent. But it was also not a solidarity summit. Some of the world’s largest countries, like India and Brazil, were amongst those who refused to be co-opted into the Western position. This is not how peace is done.

That is very true. In reality, this was a summit of the West and some of its allies. There were notable absences in terms of those countries not present. China, for example, chose not to attend. Equally, major countries from the global south attended but chose not to sign. There were also notable inclusions. Did the Irish State have anything to say about the fact that Israel was present and signed this declaration condemning all of Russia's war crimes while literally at the same time committing exactly the same, if not worse, war crimes? Was there no pointing out of the extreme hypocrisy of this? This creates problems for the countries of the global south in respect of why there are these double standards. Some of them oppose western imperialism. Some of them may be in the camp of Russia, but some of them may be looking to have a consistent position of opposing Russian war crimes as well opposing Israeli war crimes and western imperialism.

I have a concrete question. Has Ireland taken or is the Government considering taking any initiatives in this regard? We are, relatively speaking, in the global north but we are not a traditional military power, a major imperial country and so on. I refer to working with the likes of Brazil, where Lula has come out in favour of a peace plan to try to have a real peace process in terms of Ukraine.

Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I welcome what the Taoiseach said about a cross-Border enterprise hub to deal with certain issues. I probably failed to say that there would need to be engagement with the British Government and some sort of bilateral agreement. Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves might be more open than the people who sat there previously. The issue of the underfunding of the Executive needs to be dealt with.

Turning back to the peace conference, it has been said by many of my colleagues that the double standards are an issue. They are an issue in relation to the global south. We must all call out the attacks on the hospital and the continuation of old-style Russian imperialism. I get that it is very difficult to have a peace deal until we have two parties willing to deal. We must do what can be done. At the same time, however, we must also play our part. This brings us back to trying to find those who will work alongside us to make moves around the EU-Israel association agreement and the humanitarian conditions. We must also look at divestment, including in respect of our legislation concerning those involved in illegal settlements, etc.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

First, I sincerely welcome that everybody in this House who has spoken clearly condemns the horrific actions of Putin. I accept that, I acknowledge it and it is important that we say it, particularly after the horror of the children's hospital. I do want to acknowledge that.

To be clear, I do not expect the Deputy to follow what I say at these summits, but I did very clearly say in my contribution on behalf of Ireland that I felt we could not sit at a peace summit at which Israel was present and ignore the humanitarian catastrophe that is unfolding in the Middle East. I called it out and I think Norway also called it out, but many others did not. I found it ironic that Israel was present at the peace summit and I did call it out. There is a real challenge here. I have said at the European Council - others have said it too, but not that many - that we need a consistency of approach. This country often gets defined as pro-Palestinian or pro-something else. We can all have different perspectives but, fundamentally, our foreign policy is grounded in being pro-international law and pro-human rights, and a child is a child is a child. Whether it is a child who is brutally murdered in the Middle East, in Gaza or a child in a hospital in Ukraine, this country should always call that out.

The Deputy is right that some countries may not have been at the peace summit for different reasons, including alliances with Russia. Let us park that. There are other countries in other parts of the world outside “the West”, if you want to call it that, that do challenge us on the inconsistent approach to different conflicts. There cannot be a hierarchy when it comes to international law or human rights. I agree that the inconsistent approach that is being adopted by some countries and the European Union as a whole to the conflict and the war in the Middle East versus the brutal, illegal invasion of Ukraine is possibly hampering a consistent global approach being taken. I have no difficulty in saying that because I believe it to be true.

In relation to the concrete actions we are taking, in my conversations with President Zelenskyy, of which I have had a few at this stage, he has asked that we continue to reach out to countries where Ireland has a traditional track record of support via development aid and others to ask those countries to come to the table. I heard the commentary Deputy Paul Murphy read out and I have heard other commentary to the same degree. You can either adopt a glass-half-full or glass-half-empty approach to the peace summit in Switzerland. I believe there is value in it in the sense that it was the largest gathering of countries, leaders and international organisations since the conflict and Putin's illegal invasion began. In that sense, that in and of itself it had value. A lot of work was done in the breakout sessions, including, as I referenced in my opening statement, work on humanitarian aid, abducted children, food supply and food security that helps or, at least, that we must work on in the here and now.

By the way, I believe there was a broad consensus in relation to principles for peace that need to respect the UN Charter, territorial integrity and sovereignty, and that is important. I believe, however, that the next peace summit, and I hope there will be another one, must seek to bring more people to the table. That is a role that Ireland will continue to endeavour to play. Of course, from the point of view of concrete initiatives, we continue to assist Ukraine, not just from a humanitarian perspective or by welcoming people from Ukraine who are here seeking refuge, but also by demining and through the work of the ESB, which has helped. One of the big concerns that Ukraine has right now is energy and keeping the lights on, because Putin is particularly targeting energy supply. We are also trying to assist with issues of cybersecurity.