Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I thought that too and wondered if I was qualified. They really are great jobs and a great basis for developing a really interesting, well-paid career with great opportunities. The Deputy is right to identify it. We are trying to change it but I am going to need a lot of help to tell this story more broadly.

On the question of neutrality and whether we are under pressure on that, I have never felt that pressure. I have never felt pressure based on Ireland's non-military alignment. To be clear, as I have said so many times, we are not politically neutral. We are simply not politically neutral. We take a very firm view against Russia and for Ukraine. We are not politically neutral but we are not militarily aligned. That is really important to Ireland and there is a lot of respect for that and an acknowledgement of it. Of course, we are not on our own in that regard. Austria, Malta and Switzerland are in the same situation. However, while that is so and we are not under pressure in relation to it, we need to do more to try to understand how our neighbours feel. They turned up for us during Brexit. There were European politicians walking the fields along the Border-----