Maureen O'Sullivan (Dublin Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I may have to leave at some point as I must speak elsewhere. The first point I would make is that we have never really had a national debate on our defence policy. There is this rush today. I do not think saying that there was a Commencement debate in the Seanad and a Topical Issues debate in the Dáil is enough. The Minister of State is now before the committee and we have four hours tomorrow to attend to this matter. I do not think this represents an adequate debate on a move that will change our defence policy and change so much about that policy. It is like the old saying "marry in haste, repent at leisure". I think we can apply that to so many situations and this is one of them. While many of us would like to see an increase in the defence budget because we know about the problems in our Defence Forces, we would like to see it going to our Defence Forces personnel, particularly to retain those experienced people and the equipment they need.

PESCO means that we will part of a system where there will be a military solution. What we do consistently say about the Good Friday Agreement, for example? This committee and the Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement have been meeting delegations from conflict areas consistently. What we say to them concerns the importance of sitting down, listening, talking, negotiating and compromising but we are now proposing that we commit to this military solution, which could be detrimental.

Last week, we discussed those two measures from the European Defence Agency programmes. We agreed that they were relatively benign and the cost was not prohibitive but we all made the point that we are increasingly encroaching on our neutrality and increasingly moving towards militarisation. This undermines our humanitarian work, our peacekeeping operations and the respect we are held in because of our human rights work and our role in respect of the sustainable development goals. The Minister of State says this will make us more safe and secure. We are safe and secure. We are an island that is traditionally neutral. We did not have an empire and have not created these problems that have brought threats to other European countries. The Taoiseach says countries need to co-operate but why must this be done in a military way? Why are we not just co-operating as we always have done in a non-threatening way?

I note that Denmark has an opt-out on military CSDP matters. Where is our role in that? The Minister of State says there will be no EU army but yet there will be a centre of excellence for EU military training missions. There seems to be a contradiction here. I do not think we are in any danger. I do not see the point of what is being proposed here. I think it will undermine our traditional neutrality and will create more problems than the Minister of State says it will solve.