The Russian Ambassador to Ireland will not be expelled - at least for now, Minister for Europe Thomas Byrne has told Newstalk. 

Yesterday Charlie Flanagan, Chairman of the Oireachtas Foreign Affairs Committee, said that Ambassador Yury Filatov should be expelled as punishment for the invasion and the “lies” he had told to the Irish people in the run up to it.  

However, speaking to On The Record with Gavan Reilly, Minister Byrne said the Government planned on taking a more cautious approach: 

“As regards the Ambassador, I certainly don’t want him in the country,” Minister Byrne said. 

“But we all have to look at this in a slightly dispassionate way as well. 

“First of all we want to do this at a European level, so there is a common approach. That’s far more effective, if everyone does the same thing. 

“We also want to make sure that if we have problems with Irish citizens in Russia, that there is someone there to help them. 

“Because obviously, if you expel diplomats here, there’s a tit for tat and Irish diplomats get expelled on the other side. 

“So this has been under discussion at European level. I’ve no doubt it will continue to be under discussion but whatever happens will be a common European approach.” 

He also stressed that while Ireland has an “extremely small” Embassy in Moscow, staff there are “overworked with consular issues”. 

Listen and subscribe to On The Record with Gavan Reilly on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify.

Salisbury

In 2018 Ireland expelled one Russian diplomat after the Kremlin attempted to assassinate a former KGB double agent living in the English town of Salisbury. 

Western countries across the world booted out Russian diplomats and at the time Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney said that Ireland had, “an obligation to act and to send a clear signal that what happened in Salisbury was unacceptable.”

Main image: The Russian Ambassador to Ireland  talks to the media. Picture by: Sasko Lazarov/RollingNews.ie