Professor Ben Tonra:

I apologise for throwing a metaphorical grenade into the room with my comments on development. The point I was trying to make was that if we are to have a conversation on Irish security and defence, which encompasses where our neutrality is and what we define it as, there is a wide range of options. It is just a conversation we have not had. Part of the reason we have not had the conversation is that people are shouting at one another using definitions they do not share. We should have that conversation. There are lots of different ways Ireland can go. It does not have to join NATO, nor does it have to be a Switzerland. There are lots of possibilities there. I was just positing something that could be a model for a different kind of foreign policy of neutrality.

The big point I want to make is to come back to Deputy Ó Murchú with respect to the broader picture. Peace is not the absence of war. Security is not just about guns and bombs. Security is much broader. In our field, Dr. McDonagh and I talk about things such as human security, which speaks precisely to the Deputy's point about poverty, lack of development and injustice. This is the stuff that gives rise to insecurity. That insecurity is expressed in many ways. It does find expression in armed conflict. However, it also finds its expression in migration, human trafficking and drug trafficking. There is a whole range of insecurity that comes out of a lack of human security.

I do not want to labour the point but if Ireland decided to make its contribution to security through addressing human security, not just as we do at the moment at a verbal level, not just talking the talk but actually putting our money were our mouth was, that would be a significant contribution. It would be a different kind of model. It may be pie in the sky. One may say academics can say anything, but it would be a different kind of model Ireland could contribute to. If we choose not to, that is fine. The point is Europe faces huge security challenges. Ireland needs to make its contribution to those challenges. There are different routes to do that but we need to have that conversation. We need to be explicit in terms of what we are doing because as of the moment what we are doing is simply sitting as a bystander, not contributing significantly on any front and, if the committee will forgive me, rather patting ourselves on the back saying, "Aren't we grand?", and we are not.