The Workers’ Party condemns the decision by the government to hand over €125 million of public money to the corrupt and NATO-backed administration of Volodymyr Zelensky.

Ireland is currently crippled by a historic housing crisis, working families are trapped in emergency accommodation, and workers are struggling with soaring costs. The government cannot or will not solve these issues, yet somehow sees fit to spend hundreds of millions on a war on the other side of the continent, pouring cash into the bottomless pit of well-documented Ukrainian state corruption.

What exactly are we funding? A regime notorious as one of the most corrupt in Europe. International investigations, including those by the New York Times, have exposed tens of millions siphoned from the energy sector and squandered on fraudulent schemes like the Flamingo missile project. This is not aid, it is a transfer of wealth from the Irish state to offshore accounts and Western arms dealers.

The present purpose of the Ukrainian state is to fight NATO’s proxy war against Russia. We recognise that Russia, in confronting NATO expansion, is acting to break the power of a reactionary military alliance whose economic policies have long targeted Irish independence, as well as those of countless other nations around the world.

This government has chosen its side. It stands not with the Irish working class but with British, European, and American imperialists, hoping to catch some of the crumbs that fall from their table to feed Ireland’s capitalist class. However, this comes at a cost, and that cost is sovereignty. Instead of using this money to address the countless issues facing working people, as one might expect a sovereign state to prioritise, the war effort of our imperialist masters comes first.

The Workers’ Party calls for an immediate end to all financial and military support for the war in Ukraine. We wish to see this €125 million seized back and invested in solving the crises facing Irish workers: to launch a major public housing programme, to rescue our health service, and to put the needs of the Irish working class before the wants of the imperialists.