Mr. Barry Andrews:

And by Russia of course. I note Ms Boylan did not mention Russia or Ukraine in her opening statement and strikingly, the only threat she identified was climate change. Unfortunately, however, that is not the way the vast majority of European countries see this situation at the moment. Ireland is at a level of 0.24% of GDP investment in our Defence Forces, which is the lowest of the 38 countries surveyed. Countries such as Latvia and Estonia are at approximately 5% to 7% and they are not doing that lightly. This involves massive trade-offs whether it is about borrowing, increased taxation or cutting back social services. These are really painful decisions that are having to be taken by other EU member states. In fact, the neutral countries - Malta, Austria and Cyprus - all spend a lot more on their defence forces than we do. What has happened during the past couple of years is surely a wake-up call that we need to take a much more progressive view.

On the veto, as I said in my opening statement I very much feel the UN Security Council has changed. Its main purpose is the preservation of peace in the world and we do not have to go too far into our newspapers to see that it is not really working very well at the moment and there is a good opportunity for Ireland to reflect on whether or not we want to be tethered and harnessed to that forum for decisions around our foreign policy.