Catherine Ardagh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Go raibh maith agat. I know the Tánaiste has other commitments so I will be very brief.

I thank him for attending and for being very candid with us. I also thank the officials for opening the Department to us.

Like the majority of Irish people, we support the Tánaiste's narrative and beliefs when it comes to the crisis in the Middle East. He outlined the huge amount of work he and his Department have done in terms of coaxing partners in Europe and the US to change their ways and policies when it comes to the Middle East. Declaring Palestine a nation state in the next few weeks is a major part of that. There is much to be done in the context of the work that is ongoing. We and the people watching these proceedings are very proud of what has been achieved. The work that is being done at the International Criminal Court is welcome. What is frustrating is that it feels that the impact of this will be in the future rather than here and now. Irish people are very frustrated that they cannot reach out and pull out the vulnerable and those who are dying. It is extremely heartbreaking to see the daily scenes of people, especially children, being murdered. We all feel as though we need to do more. I know the Tánaiste is doing as much as possible. He should keep doing what he is doing and fighting on our behalf.

On women, peace and security, it is one of the primary themes of our committee that women and girls are the first victims of any sort of destruction of democracy. That is what we are seeing. We attended a conference recently in Athens, the home of democracy. For all of the parliamentarians who attended, that was the main theme. They feel that the attacks on democracy, especially when it comes to the weaponising of cyberspace, are becoming intense. We are funding the fight against these attacks properly. I was taken by what was said to the effect that we need a great deal more collaboration and that adequate funding is required. At the moment, we spend 0.23%, or €1.23 billion, of GDP on defence. We are going to have to look at properly funding cybersecurity, climate security and maritime security.

We have come out of a 70-year period of peace in Europe, which is amazing. In the US, there is so much cohesion when it comes to military capacity, weapons and the levels of interoperability. In Europe, there is great disparity when it comes to the different defence agencies. That is because we have only started looking at this again and building up our capacity when it comes to defence and investment in defence, which is down to the fact that we have emerged from such a long period of peace. In such a short period over the past few years, we have seen a major change on the world stage in the context of war and conflict. We do not know where we are going to be in the next few years, which is really frightening. The Balkan states have been here before. They understand what is possible because they have come out of a shorter period of peace. They understand what the Russians are capable of. We probably do not understand how much of a threat we are living under. The threat to use is in the area of cybersecurity. We have seen the scenes in Georgian Parliament. I do not know what we are going to see when it comes to the elections around Europe and in Ireland over the next year. Things are changing extremely quickly. As a previous speaker stated, we need to invest in ensuring that people have the correct information and that they understand that what they seen on their phones is not always right and that they need to question it. It is difficult to get people to that point because they believe what they see. That is my tuppence worth.