Foreign Conflicts
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-05
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Neale Richmond (FG), Dublin Rathdown

In direct response to the Deputy's question, I do not envisage a lessening of sanctions any time soon. They were only just increased in December due to the hybrid incursions into Lithuanian airspace. I go back to his original point on how we get guided by the application of sanctions. Sanctions do work. Sanctions forced the Belarusians to release so many prisoners and the sheer prospect of them being weakened by the Americans provided that support. When we talk about Belarus, bearing in mind that we are, most likely, the EU member state located the furthest away geographically, the diplomat who services Belarus for us is accredited to our embassy in Vilnius. I think of the mindset and the interventions of my counterparts, particularly in the Baltic states and in Poland, who, on a daily basis not only face the very real undermining of their civil and political infrastructure by hybrid activities by Belarus but also the sheer impact of the complicity of Belarus in Russia's horrendous full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In many cases, I therefore defer to my Lithuanian colleague, a country which will assume the Presidency of the Council of the EU after Ireland as part of the trio system. We continue to engage with all our contacts both on a civic society basis within and outside Belarus as well as those from the political movement in exile. There is a clear demand to maintain the level of sanctions and be responsive to any more antagonism or protagonism from Belarus.
Let us be quite frank: Lukashenko is a dictator who has repressed his people since the collapse of the Soviet Union. He has done so willingly, aided and abetted by another dictator in the form of Vladimir Putin. They work in concert to repress their own people and undermine the very stability of the global world order that has kept Europe, until recently, in a level of peace that had not been seen before in history. Any sort of softening when it comes to the regime in Belarus is, by proxy, a softening when it comes to the regime in Russia. I am extremely heartened to see more political prisoners released. I am extremely heartened when they give us the honour to visit Ireland and to engage with us as a member of the EU, bearing in mind the human ties going back to the Chernobyl disaster. We all have to be very wary when it comes to Belarus and make sure that the sanctions are maintained at a level deemed necessary by us within the European Union as an entirety.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-05/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:36+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-05