Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Ardagh for her comments. I take her point on the International Criminal Court and the international legal system more generally. I have always been very clear that it takes time and that the impact is not immediate. However, the court is an important forum of accountability. Among EU member states, Ireland has been one of the most proactive at the ICJ and the ICC so far in the context of Palestine. Accountability matters. We know that because Israel takes the court seriously in terms of its response. That is not in the media, however. The feeling of helplessness to which the Senator referred is something I pick up regularly as I travel around the country. People are appalled that women, children and other innocent civilians are being killed. They feel helpless in terms of what we can do. We have to keep pushing for a ceasefire. Public opinion has changed, but, more importantly, the position of countries in response to this war has changed. There was a much different view in October of last year. Now, the vast majority of countries in Europe want and are calling for an immediate ceasefire. The vote at the UN in recent days was substantially in favour of admitting Palestine as a member. This type of international pressure has to be kept up in order to get a cessation of hostilities.

In terms of women, peace and security, that is a key objective of our foreign policy and our international engagement. We provide significant resources towards it. When we were on the UN Security Council, we were particularly active on that front and brought women who had experience of conflict situations before the council to articulate their experiences. When I was in Colombia recently - we are involved in the peace process there - we highlighted the importance of that strand to any peace process.

In the context of military and defence spending, we are coming from a low base. Given the strength of our GDP, it will be a long time before we get to 2%. That is because our GDP is quite artificial in one sense. However, we can only increase in line with our capacity to absorb. We are building up the level of expenditure; it is growing. The other aspect in respect of which we need to build capacity is procurement. We must ensure that we have the capacity to procure additional capability. Radar has been identified as a key area. I am pursuing this in very practical terms because we need to know what is in happening in our airspace and all other domains. We have implemented significant infrastructural improvements across all barracks. We are close to completing a master plan for Baldonnell. There is a very aggressive and proactive enhancement of facilities for the Defence Forces across the country. That is being done in a very programmatic, proper way. There will be master plans for every site and we will make sure that we build on the investment that has already been made.