Cabinet Committees Dail Éireann — 2026-05-12 ============================================================ Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central I thank Members for their comments. I will begin with Deputy Shay Brennan, who referred to developments relating to the war in Ukraine. One of the more significant developments has been the unblocking of the €90 billion loan to Ukraine in the aftermath of the Hungarian election. That sends a real signal to Russia that Europe is in there for the long haul and that Ukraine will have the capacity, in budgetary terms, to invest in defending itself. That is significant. European Union leaders are looking at the idea of Europe opening up its own channel of negotiations with Russia at some stage. That is being tentatively explored and discussed, because we do need to bring an end to the war. The US-brokered dialogue has not yielded an outcome. We are very conscious of the need to protect the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Enlargement will feature as a key topic during the Irish Presidency. In our view, Ukrainian membership of the European Union in and of itself would afford some form of security and protection to Ukraine. Fundamentally, it is to say that to the Ukrainian people, who desire the freedoms that are attached to European Union membership, as opposed to what the situation might be if their country was to be taken over by Russia. We have to respond to the desires of the Ukrainian people, who do aspire to a European way of life in terms of democracy, freedom of speech and all of that. We will be progressing enlargement in the context of Ukraine. The precise form that will take has to be discussed by the various member states. Enlargement has been on the slow burner for the past decade. It has come into life more recently because of Russia's imperialist approach to many countries, including those in the western Balkans and Moldova. The latter have come under enormous pressure from Russia in the context of attempts to interfere in their elections. They have proved resilient enough. I met with President Maia Sandu recently. The whole Moldova and Ukraine piece around enlargement will be a key agenda item for us to see if we can progress it. On technology, An Garda Síochána has substantially enhanced its technology capability with drones, as have our military and Defence Forces. It is interesting. Reference was made to the University of Limerick, UL. I visited the university's underwater drone capacity research centre. It was a very insightful visit, and the research is ground-breaking. Ireland will be playing a role in protecting subsea cables, for example, and the gas connectors with the United Kingdom. On Deputy Ó Cearúil's question on sanctions, there has been big progress with the European Union. Many member states are coming around to the Irish and Spanish position. Despite what is said, Ireland and Spain were the first to call for a review of the EU-Israel association agreement, and a lot more countries are coming around to our view. A breakthrough has happened in terms of sanctioning settlers, and a number have been identified. That was blocked by Hungary for quite some time but has now been lifted. There has also been progress with regard to sanctions on Hamas leaders. That is some bit of progress. There is more work to be done about the association agreement. The Minister updated the Cabinet on that this morning. The behaviour of Israel is reprehensible. I will deal with that again later in respect of other questions. Active work is being done by the Irish Government with others at European Union level, at the Foreign Affairs Council and at the European Council. With regard to Deputy Martin Daly's question, the cost of living will be a theme in the context of the energy crisis. Interestingly, and rightly, Deputy Daly has focused on groceries and food prices for hard-pressed families. In the context of the budget, we will be looking at how we can reduce the pressure on families in that regard, and particularly for those on the lowest incomes who inflation hits the most. I take on board what Deputy Daly has said. On Deputy Coppinger's question, we are not urging anyone to play anything. I wish we could have a decent debate about this, but I get the feeling that the Deputy is more interested----- --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-05-12/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:49+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-05-12