It is particularly appropriate that the Ceann Comhairle mentioned the horrors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima as we mark the first anniversary of Putin's bloody, murderous and criminal invasion of Ukraine. The United States, the biggest power in the world, in two days with nuclear weapons incinerated more than 300,000 people. Today, Vladimir Putin, another nuclear power, said he is ramping up his nuclear arsenal and is considering withdrawing from the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, START. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which was set up after the horrors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, set a thing called the doomsday clock. This January they set that clock at the closest point to midnight that it has been set since Nagasaki and Hiroshima. They set the doomsday clock, by which they mean the prospect of nuclear Armageddon, at 90 seconds to midnight largely because of the terrifying prospect of the war in Ukraine escalating to the point of the use of nuclear weapons. It is worth considering what they said, as their body includes nuclear scientists and ten Nobel Peace Prize laureates. They said that:

The US government, its NATO allies and Ukraine have a multitude of channels for dialogue; we urge leaders to explore all of them to their fullest ability to turn back the Clock.

Nuclear weapons are the weapons of the psychopath. Those who used them in Nagasaki and Hiroshima were operating a psychopathic murderous logic. Vladimir Putin has rained death and destruction on the people of Ukraine and is operating a psychopathic logic. However, it is also the case that NATO, with its own bloody history, is seeking to do nothing other than escalate this conflict to the terrifying possibility that we could have a nuclear situation. Against that background, what does the Tánaiste do? As the Tánaiste of a neutral country, who was formerly Taoiseach, he says now is the time to reconsider the triple lock, to review essentially our position of neutrality and to deploy 30 troops to participate in the war in Ukraine in flagrant breach of our neutral status. When he was in government in 2003 he facilitated 1 million US troops to go through Shannon Airport in order to prosecute another bloody war. Does the Tánaiste not think, one year into the war in Ukraine, that the lesson is that a neutral country should be using its voice on the international stage to call for peace, negotiations and to stop the terrifying escalation of this conflict that we are witnessing which could bring the world to the brink of conflict?

I find Deputy Boyd Barrett's remarks deeply disturbing and unfair. Inevitably in every contribution he makes on the war in Ukraine he brings it around to the NATO issue, and it is NATO's fault ultimately in his mind. It is a disgraceful and distorted assessment of his that he has just articulated now, that somehow NATO wants to escalate this.

It was the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

I did not interrupt Deputy Boyd Barrett. He should have the decency to allow me to make a reply. The Deputy has just asserted in a distorted manner the idea that NATO wants to escalate the war on Ukraine to a nuclear status. That is a disgraceful and wrong thing to say. Germany is in NATO. France is in NATO. They did everything they could to persuade Putin not to launch that war. They were lampooned by some for endeavouring to persuade Putin not to launch that war. Why does the Deputy not accept that reality? I have been at meetings where we have been briefed on the dangers in Zaporizhzhia where Ukrainian citizens are surrounded by Russian troops, where there is shelling in its proximity and where, internationally, we have supported moves to create a safe zone around it, notwithstanding Ukrainian sovereignty. The safe zone was to protect and to ensure the avoidance of any untoward event happening in that particular nuclear plant.

German Chancellor Scholz went to China to meet with the Chinese President. Why? It was to get China to articulate unequivocally the need not to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Such a statement did emanate from the Chinese authorities to the effect that there should be no nuclear dimension to this war and Russia should not use nuclear weapons. Russia has been the only country that has hinted and implied the use of nuclear weapons in the context of this war. Why? It is because Russia is playing on rational minds. The President of the United States is such a rational mind. He understands the danger of this war and how it can spill over. He understands the line he has to navigate between trying to stop this war and stop Putin’s shocking attack on civilians in Ukraine. Day and night, we all see the bombing of civil infrastructure, energy plants and apartment blocks. Ukrainians have a right to self defence under the UN Charter. We can help with our 30 personnel - that is all - to deal with de-mining. It is only training, on European soil, to help them to deal with medical situations within Ukraine. We know that cluster munitions, which Russia has used, can cause extraordinary damage after an attack, when children go out to play and have limbs amputated-----

Time, Tánaiste.

-----because they pick up something that does not look like a bomb but is a bomb. Deputy Boyd Barrett is saying we should not help to train people to prevent that terrible impact on civilians.

I thank the Tánaiste. We are over time.

Everybody is clear that Putin is a murderous tyrant and criminal warmonger. However, I quoted the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists which is made up of ten Nobel Peace Prize laureates who start by condemning Putin and then go on to urge NATO. The problem is that the Tánaiste has a blind spot when it comes to the equally bloody history of NATO and its major powers. The United States has never apologised for the use of nuclear weapons in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. It still believes it has the right to possess them. The Tánaiste states, rightly, that the Ukrainian people have the right to resistance against an illegal occupation. Will he say the same about the Palestinians, of whom ten were killed last night in Nablus in a raid by Israel in what is an illegal occupation and military intervention into land internationally designated for the Palestinians?

Time is up now, Deputy, please.

Will the Tánaiste call that a war crime? Will he say the Palestinians have the right to military resistance against what Israel is doing? Of course he will not because Israel is an ally of the United States. We will never prevent war if a neutral country has a blind spot about some of the warmongers in this world. A consistent position is opposing all nuclear powers, all warmongering powers, whether it is the-----

Please, we are over time.

-----tyrannical regime of Russia or NATO and the western powers.

I am the leader of the Fianna Fáil Party, of which Frank Aiken was a member. He was the first Minister for Foreign Affairs to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. My party and colleagues in the Government in this House have a very proud record on the international stage with respect to nuclear disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation.

This is being done without the assent of this House.

Please.

This country has a strong record in that regard, even in its most recent iteration on the Security Council of the United Nations for the past two years. We do not have any blind spot about nuclear weaponry. We have been consistent. More than a decade ago, we were the leaders, with Norway, the Vatican and others, in having the international convention banning the use of cluster munitions. Ireland is well respected for its role and well respected in regard to defending Palestinians and providing support to try to develop a two-state solution in Palestine. Indeed, it was a former Fianna Fáil foreign Minister, the late Brian Lenihan senior, who was the first Minister in Europe to recognise Palestinians' right to a homeland. We have been consistent in our support for a two-state solution. Ireland is one of the strongest supporters of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, UNRWA.

Time is up now Tánaiste, please.

We have been very strong in terms of holding accountability in respect of Israeli attacks and atrocities. We condemned what happened last evening. It was wrong. We are very concerned about the trends in regard to that issue. The fundamental point is this. We stand by the international rules-based order, the United Nations Charter.

Time is up, please.

Putin has breached it in an appalling manner. All we are saying is we will help to train some Ukrainians in respect of their capability in medical combat, in bomb disposal and in other areas of that kind. It is not too great an ask for this country to make and it does not threaten in any shape or form our neutrality, which is defined by non-military alignment. We are not members of NATO. We have no intentions or immediate plans whatsoever to join NATO.