Taoiseach's Communications
Dail Éireann — 2022-01-25
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Richard Boyd Barrett (PBP), Dún Laoghaire

Vladimir Putin is a thug and autocrat who has done very nasty things recently to working people in Kazakhstan, has waged a bloody war in Chechnya and is now flexing his muscles in Ukraine, so of course we should condemn what Russia is doing, but why is there no condemnation from a country that is supposed to be neutral of a clear agenda by NATO to expand eastwards and escalate military tensions with Russia? Why does the Government correctly condemn Russian military exercises in Irish waters but allow the US military to use Shannon Airport every single day of the week to prosecute wars across the world and kidnap and torture people in its rendition programme? We do not condemn that. Why is the Government saying nothing about the fact NATO wrote to EU foreign ministers before Christmas asking them to increase military expenditure and align more closely with the NATO military alliance, which is a US-led and aggressive military alliance? Neutrality means not taking sides in dangerous conflicts and game-playing between major imperial powers.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2022-01-25/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:50:01+00:00
Sitting date: 2022-01-25