Alison O'Connor: Time for proper debate on Irish neutrality

Our neutrality means different things to different people and the war in Ukraine highlights the need to work that out

A woman holds a small girl at a border crossing in Medyka, Poland, as Ukrainian refugees flee the Russian invasion. Picture: Markus Schreiber/AP

How do you stay neutral in the event of a wraparound war that is not only taking place on the edge of the continent in which you live, but digitally experienced in real time here, the instant it happens there?

We can’t taste and smell what is happening in Ukraine but it does feel we can almost touch the horror that has befallen the country since Russia began it’s war over a week ago. We are seeing it all live on social media — the tiny babies plucked from hospital neonatal wards bedded down on the floor of bomb shelters. Other babies born in similar surroundings. Families huddled in underground car parks. Queues for the supermarkets and pharmacies.