Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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The inadequate terms and conditions for many in the Army and the Naval Service are of significant concern for many. I also know many left the Naval Service because they were disappointed that Ireland stopped engaging in humanitarian search and rescue. That was explicitly in order to move towards a security rather than a humanitarian focus. Many of those in our Defence Forces feel huge pride when they have that explicit guarantee of Ireland's neutrality because they know they go with a different voice and a different mandate.

I want to mention two things. The Vice Chair has made the point that at a time when we are seeing military actors, including commercial military actors, the question of arms manufacturing, when we have no guarantees as to where those arms end up, is troubling. We do not want to be implicated in any way in putting guns into the hands of those who operate completely outside of even a national mandate.

I want also to say that I have been extraordinarily proud of the United Nations over the last year. It has been very clear. It is not simply a Security Council. The United Nations is also UNESCO and UNICEF which does important work with children. It is UN women, UNRWA and the relief works agency. There are all of those aspects to the United Nations where support is given to humanity as a whole, regardless of which country it comes from. It is that idea of basic principles. They are principles underpinned by a charter on how we treat each other. There has been a lot of reassertion of that common strong mandate of the United Nations by all of its different entities, including the World Health Organization or others, over the past year and I have been very proud of it.