The Irish government expelled 4 out of 30 registered Russian diplomats in Ireland allegedly for meeting with dissident Republican and loyalist paramilitaries in an attempt to stoke tensions here and in N. Ireland.

Russia has also been seeking to develop its 4-acre embassy site on Orwell Road as an intelligence gathering hub for western Europe and has re-registered billions of Euros worth of aircraft owned by Irish leasing companies as Russian.

Russia did nothing to prevent the activities of Russian based hackers inserting ransomware software on our Health services systems costing us millions and putting lives at risk. The Russian invasion of Ukraine will also cost us billions in aid and refugee hospitality costs.

Russia has now expelled two out of our six embassy staff in Moscow - one third of our full complement which is equivalent to us expelling 10 of their diplomats in proportionate terms. The Department of Foreign Affair's excuse for taking such minimalistic action is that it wanted to keep communications channels open and be able to service Irish citizens in Russia.

Surely the time has come to advise all remaining Irish nationals to leave Russia immediately and shut down our embassy there completely and expel all Russian remaining diplomats here. Their embassy here seems to be immeasurably more important to their unfriendly activities in Europe than ours in Moscow is to us.

Moscow will still only be a phone call away if communications are required, and we should not fool ourselves into thinking the Irish government concerns will have any priority in future Russian foreign relations.

In the meantime, we can use their ample grounds in Orwell Road to house Ukrainian refugees.