Mattie McGrath: Claims Neutrality Is Being Undermined
Mattie McGrath criticised the Taoiseach's response on neutrality and raised concerns about warships and grain imports. He argued neutrality is being undermined, pointed to visits to world conferences and to warships arriving at Corkport, and questioned recent corn imports from Russia despite sanctions.
Allegation of undermined neutrality
He said the Taoiseach ignored his question about whether neutrality had been discussed at recent world conferences and later insisted neutrality was never mentioned. McGrath argued this amounted to neutrality being undermined "on a daily basis" and sidelined.
Warships at Corkport
He highlighted the recent arrival of warships at Corkport, saying there have been two recently - English and Canadian - as an illustration of neutrality being compromised in practice.
Russian grain imports and farmers' concerns
He raised concerns that almost a thousand tons of corn had been imported from Russia in recent weeks despite sanctions, noting shipments arrived and that one consignment was two tons short of a thousand. McGrath warned such imports could depress prices for crops and affect farmers and consumers.
Broader international priorities and humanitarian concerns
He acknowledged the "awful suffering going on in Ukraine" and described the war as horrendous, while also saying Ireland had ignored other plights around the world. He said domestic priorities were being neglected in favour of international engagements, mentioning Africa and a figure he called "the Kishuk" as examples of attention being paid abroad rather than to "our home turf."
We publish thousands of recordings to make Irish politics transparent and resistant to manipulation. Spotted an error? Report it — together we are building a reliable archive of Irish politics.
Good morning, I too am glad to be able to speak on this year today and I'm quite a lamb for a number of things because a Taoiseach's question is to Taoiseach and I asked about the recent visits to different big conferences, world conferences and was neutrality ever mentioned and in fact he ignored me but when I asked him a second time he said no neutrality was never mentioned so our neutrality is being undermined on a daily basis and being just sidelined and with warships coming into Corkport, we've had two of them recently, English and Canadian and also I'm also rather intrigued and concerned farmers are harvesting now and the weather is great thankfully and they have a fine promising crop but almost a thousand tons of corn was imported from Russia in recent weeks for Russia and we have sanctions against them so what kind of games are you playing with the people and to drive down the price for the crops and for the people buying the people buying the farmers produce so there's games going on here we're told that there's no sanctions and we can't import but this came in actually two tons short of a thousand tons came in and a number of ship loads of grain in so I mean who's fooling who here there's awful suffering going on in Ukraine we know that it's an awful horrendous horrific war that may be accused of anything unfair there but we're ignoring plights and war and persecution in many parts of the world I spoke here last week about what's going on in Africa and other areas and we're obsessed that the Kishuk is definitely obsessed with going out with his European masters and looking after other places rather than our home turf
Thank you for downloading 🙏
If you publish this material on social media, we would be very grateful if you tagged VideoParliament. It helps us reach more people and keep building a transparent archive of Irish politics.
