Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There are quite a number of issues surrounding this and other ongoing attempts to further ingrain Ireland's defence policies with those of other countries within the European Union which have indicated publicly their aim to bring about a European army. While it has not been passed by the Houses of the Oireachtas, every single step taken in recent years has been blatantly flagged by those at the head of the European Parliament and the European Commission. The objective has been stated clearly at European Council meetings and it is a little more than rhetoric, as pointed out by Deputy Jack Chambers. Gradual movement in this direction is gathering pace, as is clear from the motions that have been brought before the committee on a more regular basis of late. Some of them are innocuous, or seem to be, while some are more blatant in their intent, but they are all part of an overall jigsaw. An apparatus is being formed to make it virtually impossible for the Defence Forces to stay out in the future. Doing so is becoming more difficult; the more interdependent we become, the more the Army becomes dependent on the skill sets of other EU armies and the more our call signs and operational procedures will become the exact same as those of other countries. Since the founding of the State we have enjoyed an independent foreign policy and the Defence Forces have upheld our neutrality proudly. We need the best possible protection for Irish soldiers. We also need the best working conditions and proper pay for them. It is great to hear the Minister of State talk about the papal visit; we all saw the media headlines about the pay some soldiers received for being on duty and involved in operations for the visit. The same applies to what happens on other occasions on which they are on duty for a lot longer than they should be, especially considering that we are living in a time of peace.

I asked a question about this specific issue in the Dáil recently. The Minister of State answered that he could not respond to it owing to concerns about the security of the State. The information I have is that the ordnance unit which comprises those involved in bomb disposal who most likely would be part of the groups the Minister of State would send abroad to learn additional skills is not operating at full capacity and is struggling to fill the time slots available. If that is true, the Minister of State is signing us up to something in which we will probably not be able to participate and will be overstretching an existing resource. It is not a skill that can be learned overnight. The skill set is available within the Defence Forces, but my information is that corporate knowledge is being lost because the unit is not running at full capacity, which is an emergency. I do not expect the Minister of State to go into detail on how many soldiers are allocated to the position or how many vacancies there are. That is not why I raised the issue in the Dáil. The question I have asked is whether the Minister of State is aware that there is a shortfall and that there is a need to increase numbers. Having said that, sending personnel abroad to acquire training in skills they might never need in aid to the civil power is not the way to increase numbers.

The Minister of State has correctly said the European Defence Agency was set up in an effort to improve European defence capabilities, rather than the defence capabilities of individual countries in the fields of crisis management and peace making, as well as sustaining the European security and defence policy, as it stood at the time. While Ireland may have signed up to the policy, the first goal of the Defence Forces is peacekeeping. They have an honourable history in that regard. They are also supposed to function in aid to the civil power. The operations listed by the Minister of State were undertaken on that basis; they were not operations carried out abroad because, as far as I know, there is not that capability. The Minister of State also listed other projects in which Ireland had been involved, including under the European Defence Agency. While some of the projects can be considered to be innocuous, others are definitely not.

Their aim is to increase the interoperability of EU armies and the EDA.

More recently, the aim of PESCO is not only to enhance the capability but also the military spend. Coupled with that are the changes that happened to European funding. As of 2016, funding is available for military research and the sum of money that has been set aside, of which European military contractors are encouraged to avail, is not small. It includes grant aids and so on to enhance the military apparatus within Europe. It has moved from a few hundred million euros to a number of billion euros in the space of five or six years.

I do not expect to win over the Minister of State on the matter but I am opposed to it as being one part of a continuous change to the nature of our neutrality and the use of the Defence Forces in making us more dependent as a State in Europe on the European military apparatus.