Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)

-----and, quite frankly, it is dreamland really because it is not the reality. The reality is that the member states, including Ireland, totally separately, are looking to increase defence spending. There is no one telling the Irish Government that it must spend more on defence. We are doing it anyway. We are doing it because of the Commission on the Defence Forces recommended it to the last Government. The Government decided that we needed to have basic equipment for the Defence Forces. There is certainly a mood among the member states and countries in the western world to spend more on defence. Why is that? Why does Finland, for example, want to spend more on defence? It is because it has a border of 1,300 km with Russia and it feels under serious threat. The same applies to Lithuania. It is not Ursula von der Leyen telling those countries they need to protect their borders. They are telling Europe that they want its help.