Lisa Chambers (Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State and welcome her to her first meeting with this committee. She has certainly hit the ground running in her brief and it sounds like she has not taken her foot off the pedal for even a moment, with all of the meetings and engagements, which is great. It is good for Ireland that we are having these engagements on the ground and are meeting people. I also join her in congratulating Deputy Michael McGrath. She has articulated very well the importance of his brief. Obviously, as a former public expenditure Minister, having worked across all Departments, he brings unique experience to that role and is more than capable of taking it on. There is a huge body of work to be done there and the Minister of State put that very well in her comments.

A lot of topics have been discussed in detail already and I am not going to rehash what has been said but I was interested to hear that the Minister of State had been to Tallinn for a cybersecurity briefing. I would like to hear a little more detail on that because our country has matured and evolved quite rapidly in the last four years in the defence and security conversations that we are having. For the first time, there is a greater understanding in Ireland of the type of neutrality we have and there is a demand from our citizens to do more to protect the State, including State assets and infrastructure, and its citizens. The tipping point was the cyberattack on the HSE. People really understand the impact that had and it made it very real for people. Cybersecurity is the one area, when we talk about greater defence co-operation at a European level, about which there is no disagreement. I am interested to hear what is happening in that space and what kind of work Ireland is doing with our EU partners.

I note with interest the Minister of State's comments on the attitude at EU level to Ireland's military neutrality and our position in that regard.

I take on board what the Minister of State has said about having to lean in, step up, and be there for other countries. Sometimes Ireland has a very privileged position because of our geography. We think that things do not really affect us and we are fine here on our little island in the Atlantic and that nobody notices us but they very much do notice us. We are the weak link among member states. I believe we have a lot of work to do in terms of increasing defence funding in our State, to have greater capabilities for our own Defence Forces, and in being more self-sufficient and playing our role and playing our part. This does not mean we are sending troops on the ground to the front line somewhere but we are way behind where we need to be in doing our fair share with other European partners. There seems to be an expectation here that if we are in trouble people would run to help us but yet we are not willing to reciprocate in some form. We have a job of work to do there.

With regard to the security and defence space, what is happening and what does the Minister of State believe are the expectations of other member states when it comes to defence funding, participation and greater co-operation? What are they expecting from us given that they understand the position we are in nationally?