The quasi-theatrical rituals and high formality of the Oireachtas can at times make it seem remote from the world outside. At a time of crisis, the petty one-upmanship and point-scoring can strike a jarring note.
With yesterday's live address by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, however, the cold reality of Europe's current crisis intruded on Leinster House in the most bracing way. Zelenskiy spoke from Kyiv with urgency and eloquence of the horrors being inflicted by Russian forces in Ukraine. He spoke of his visit to Bucha, the liberated town on the outskirts of the capital, where Russians killed civilians and left their bodies lying out in the open – on the streets, on the footpaths, in the yards of their houses, wherever they fell. He spoke of 167 children who have been killed in Ukraine since the invasion began, and of the relentless bombing of Mariupol in the south. In that city, once home to 500,000 people, not a single house has been left intact, Zelenskiy said. The government still does not know how many people have been killed there.
Zelenskiy has accused Russia of carrying out genocide. In his address, he argued that the atrocities being inflicted on his people are part of a calculated strategy to destroy the foundations of national life, to destroy their identity, "everything that makes us Ukrainians".
Zelenskiy praised the State's work on his country's behalf. Ireland may be militarily neutral, he noted, but in Ukraine's resistance to Vladimir Putin's unprovoked aggression, taking sides is a moral imperative. Apart from People Before Profit, a supposedly anti-imperialist grouping whose members could not bring themselves to clap after Zelenskiy's address, there was a sense of cross-party unity in favour of strong measures against the Putin regime and continuing support for the people of Ukraine. Now in that consensus is Sinn Féin, a party that for years has equivocated on Russian aggression. Not long ago Sinn Féin held the EU partly responsible for the annexation of Crimea and opposed the expulsion of Russian diplomats after a chemical attack in England.
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Zelenskiy’s purpose, in this and in other addresses to parliaments across the world, is to challenge the international community to match its rhetoric with real support. Condemnation of Russia is of no use to Ukraine. It needs weapons and humanitarian aid. And it needs Russia to be further isolated so that Putin comes under greater pressure and the flow of western cash to fund his barbarous war in Ukraine can be staunched.
Ireland has very limited ability to shape events. But it cannot evade the moral test Zelenskiy’s words imply. In its small way – by continuing to welcome Ukrainians, funding humanitarian relief and making the case at EU level for stronger measures against Moscow – Ireland can and must play its part.