Mark Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister. This has been a wide-ranging discussion. We have spent an inordinate amount of time on Brexit but, to keep it on the agenda at every opportunity and emphasise the fact that the EU is its own peace process, I note we have an ongoing peace process in Northern Ireland. By any measure, Brexit has a destabilising effect on it.

Regarding the issue of Palestinians, settlement building and the sale of settlement goods despite all sorts of resolution at international level, will the Minister tackle it at EU level?

We have agreed to take in 4,000 refugees. Is there a target date for meeting that figure?

Regarding the issue of EU militarism, I note the Minister's statements on the Common Security and Defence Policy and peace and capacity building. I was in Rome with the Minister's current ministerial colleagues, Deputies Breen and Stanton, when the High Representative, Ms Federica Mogherini, stated that we would be scaling down Mare Nostrum because it was saving too many people in the Mediterranean. As a consequence, hundreds of people died when the weather improved the following year, so work had to be scaled up again. Ms Mogherini knew that, by scaling down Mare Nostrum and the rescue missions, people were going to die. The EU does not have much real concern about humanitarianism in any way, shape or form or in peace and capacity building.

The President of the European Commission, Mr. Jean-Claude Juncker, was more honest when he stated that we had to move towards common military assets. That does not sound like peace building. Time and again, the Italians have stated that the EU needs to replace the US on our borders. We have seen much of what the US has done in the Middle East. We cannot agree that we should replicate such military adventures.

I noted something with considerable disappointment. It is amazing that the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade's statement of strategy 2015-17 mentions all sorts of matters - the UN, the EU, peace and capacity building and values - but it does not mention Irish neutrality. When I asked for a reply, I was told that the statement of strategy was not solely a policy document, but an articulation of how we intended to implement our programme. If neutrality is a core value of this State, one imagines that a Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade statement of strategy that does not mention it says much more than anything else could. I am concerned about the EU's intentions and its aim to set up a military headquarters and increase common military assets.

I ask the Minister to keep raising the issue of Ibrahim Halawa at European level. This committee will discuss it again at another point. His legal team is to appear before us. It is an important issue, given that an Irish citizen is in jail in Egypt.