Lisa Chambers (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I have a few final remarks. Every time we speak about the Defence Forces participating in any project where we share knowledge and work with other member states, there is huge suspicion and I do not understand why. At the end of the day, if on the one hand we support our troops participating in peacekeeping and peace enforcement missions, which I believe most Deputies do, then we cannot on the other hand say that the troops cannot participate in projects where they work with other member states. If we are going to send troops overseas, they need to be properly equipped and they need to know what they are doing. They need to participate in training exercises or we are sending them overseas and they are not safe. They are not going over there on holidays. They are going over to participate in missions that are inherently unsafe for their welfare and possibly their lives. If the troops are not properly trained and if they do not have the most up-to-date knowledge, then they are at a disadvantage. I do not buy this idea that somehow our neutrality is being attacked because we participate in cross-training exercises. We should make no apology for equipping our troops to the best possible standards that we can.

We must ask ourselves why we do this. We do this because we know that we will benefit from economies of scale by sharing knowledge and expertise. We know that we will learn from other member states and other armies. Our troops tell us this. Every time they come back from an exercise they tell us how much they have benefited; therefore, why are we sheepishly asking for support to participate in the next training exercise? We should be fully supporting this because if we are sending them over and they are not properly trained, it is on our heads. It is up to us to ensure they are properly trained and equipped to do the missions we send them overseas to do.

I have no doubt that we do opt out of some these training project projects and programmes. I have no doubt that our troops would love to do more projects and would love to learn from and interact more with other armies. The point is being made that we are a very small nation and we do not have the answer to everything. We do not have access to all of the equipment available internationally and all of the knowledge. That is why we do these programmes. Expanding capacity or enhancing interoperability are not bad things. They are good things, and we should be proud that we are doing them and proud to be proactive about it. It annoys me that every time we participate in a defence mission or defence project abroad, there is a suggestion that we are somehow undermining neutrality. At the end of the day we have a triple-lock system. We paddle our own canoe.

It is important to remember that simply because another member state has its own ideas about a European-wide army or has its own idea about what they would like to do with defence policy in their country does not make any difference to what we do in our own state. We decide for ourselves, as we have always done. The protections are in place in the treaties to ensure that decisions with regard to our own defence policy will always be taken by ourselves in our own State. The protections are there for neutrality and the protections are there for us to decide our own policy. This fear and suspicion needs to be put to bed. We should be very loud and clear in explaining to the public and to Deputies who oppose such projects why we are doing this. We are doing it to protect our own troops because we send them overseas regularly, and if we do not train them properly, we are putting their lives at risk.