Ms Lynn Boylan:

With all due respect to the Deputy, as someone who ran in the European elections, it came up on numerous occasions. I gave an assurance to the electorate that we would defend our neutrality. As we know, the European elections are very different, as are European referendums. Neutrality comes very much into focus because the Irish people are not stupid. They can see the direction of travel of the EU and want to make sure that we defend our neutral status. They like certain elements of the EU, but they do not like the militarisation of it.