International Developments: Statements
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-21
============================================================

Ruairí Ó Murchú (SF), Louth

There is an absolute misunderstanding in relation to Donald Trump.
I am delighted to hear him say he wants a piece of ice for world protection, saying it as it is. Donald Trump obviously sees himself somewhat differently from how the rest of us see him. All he is missing is a Marvel superhero cape. That is where we are.
I concur with what some of my colleagues said earlier. It is an incredibly scary world we are now in but we have to adhere to our belief in the importance of national sovereignty, of being able to stand against might and of the righteousness and necessity of international law and multilateralism. Despite the weaknesses of the United Nations and all that has been done to it, it remains necessary and cannot be replaced with a board of peace. It is like something straight out of 1984 . We have all seen the characters involved. It is easy enough to become involved and cheap at the price. It is $1 billion to buy yourself in.
We are looking at nothing but conflict and instability. I am talking about the genocide in Palestine and the so-called peace at the minute. In this peace, we do not see any justice for the Palestinian people. I am also talking about the brutal conflict in Ukraine instigated by the Russians and about the abject savagery and destruction in Sudan. We have seen draconian actions in Iran.
We have seen an American President who is out of control. I am talking about Venezuela and the threat to Greenland. We all heard about this threat a year ago but we did not take it in any way seriously. Donald Trump believes he has a right to an empire. I am certainly not going to defend America's history of involvement internationally or the wrongs done in the Middle East, across south and central America or in Africa but there was an element of understanding that it had a nouveau empire, it maintained that empire and there was a cost to that. Donald Trump now wants to screw over his allies. There will be a need to stand up to him. It is all well and good to say that he does not necessarily have the support of the American people but we have not seen any checks and balances being able to rein him in.

---

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/2026-01-21/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-31T01:00:51+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-21