Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Dr. McDonagh. From my own perspective, so many areas have been covered. I have a few thoughts. To start where Dr. McDonagh finished, one of the key things about neutrality is that in every country in the world there are little button issues that that country deals with in a unique way. They come out of its history, its politics and its society. In the United States, you cannot put a tax on gas because if you do, it is the end of the world. Every other country in the world does not think that way or think the same way as the United States does about guns or whatever.

For us, because of a series of situations, neutrality has almost become that. Part of what I felt was missing from the discussion on that this morning was that there are a couple of aspects to it. As was alluded to, it is almost purely an emotive thing now. If anybody truly has a hard political view on neutrality, they have a hard emotive view on neutrality, which is what super-charges arguments very quickly. People move to a viewpoint which they hold very dear but they are not even sure what it means.

The other thing, which is not said and is important to say, even though it you can get into trouble for saying it, is that part of the neutrality argument is for some people anti-Americanism. When you actually look at it, they do not like the association of ideas around what neutrality ending could mean. It could mean joining NATO and forming military alliances which could mean a greater integration for this country into the Western defence system. It can be heard in some of the tones. We have public representatives where one can start on an issue but within five minutes, they will say "But America did this as well." That drives a part of the neutrality argument. Something that unfortunately a lot of public representatives on the other side are not willing to address or talk about is where we will fit in a world that is rapidly emerging, where the ability over the next 20 years to be a member of the European Union and not have an aligned position in defending that Union is no longer going to be tolerable. That places amazing pressure and problems on the people who are "anti" and the people who are "for" because it is almost universally the issue people want to duck.

To pick up on one or two aspects of things that were talked about earlier, I spend a lot of time at meetings with my EPP colleagues looking at where policy is going, particularly in these European elections but also beyond. There is no question but that from a European perspective the argument has moved completely. People forget that the presence of the United Kingdom within the European Union was a critical break on European Union militarisation, integration and defence. The UK's position was consistently that of the United States over many administrations of preserving NATO as the front-line structure. Therefore, there was no reason to develop a parallel structure. That has been blown apart. At the same time, it is quite clear from a European perspective that the UK's future in Europe will be in terms of a military alliance. Europe cannot and will not separate itself from the UK and various efforts will be made.

I refer to the development in the next four or five years of a common defence market for procurement. We talked about Trump being transactional and of moving if he is re-elected, which is not a certainty. It is more important for Europe, and I see no reason Ireland cannot play a part in that, to develop the industrial infrastructure, the industries that will enable a defence mechanism to be put in place. It was said there is a NATO alignment. The reality is that there may be a NATO alignment in terms of what bullet is put in what gun and what missile is fired at the end, but the problem for us at this moment in time is that within the European Union, if one wants to put a defence contract in place, there are about 32 options for tanks, 14 options for missile systems, and two options for anything you can think of. National policy trumps European-wide policy, whereas the United States has the ability to tender a contract that goes to a company which gives it the standards of size necessary. Europe needs to reach that point if it is to develop the industrial base that will facilitate its own defence.

From my perspective, and I would be interested in the witnesses' take on this, we are not talking about a militarisation of Europe designed to be aggressive. We are talking about the fact that if we want to have a Europe, which countries like Georgia, Moldova and North Macedonia want to join, you have to have an ability to defend what it is you are setting up.

The notion that without some defence capability, it will be left to its own devices to be a player in world affairs is living in a fool's paradise. If Europe wants to continue to move in the direction it would like to in this century, it will need to be able to back that. What will be happening to NATO simultaneously will be transformational. I do not think it will be the total destruction of NATO. I think there is the ability to outlive most American administrations but it would be damaging and therefore from Europe's perspective, the EU needs to look again at how it will defend what it wants to have as its future.

That is just my take on some of those things. I would make a side reference because it is really important, in that that is going to come at a cost financially. We are quickly forgetting that the bond issue, which was raised earlier today, is so important. We either defend it and recognise that within the budget or we are in danger of going down the route of Spanish local government just before its crash, in that there are no consequences of somebody raising gazillions of dollars or euro worth of debt which somebody else will have to pick up eventually. Therefore, we are better to put in place a structure. The lack of willingness to put in place a structure is the lack of willingness of Europe to move to the structures it needs to talk about in terms of defence. I do not know if the witnesses have any thoughts on my thoughts.