Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)

Nuair a d'fhéach mé ar an rún seo ar dtús, cheap mé go raibh duine éigin ag magadh, ní díreach sa rún ach sa leasú ón Rialtas. Is ceap magaidh sinn má leanfaimid leis an sórt seo polaitíochta. Ní ró-fhada ó shin a bhí Rialtas Fhianna Fáil agus an Chomhaontais Ghlais ag déanamh an rud ceannann céanna atá siad ag cáineadh inniu ar Rialtas nua Fhine Gael agus Pháirtí an Lucht Oibre. Is ait go bhfuil an Rialtas nua tar éis polasaí an sean-Rialtais a thógáil go huile is go hiomlán.

I thought it was a joke that this motion was before us at all. The arguments contained within the Fianna Fáil motion are the exact arguments I put to Deputy - or Corporal - Willie O'Dea when he was on the other side of the House, when he and his Government implemented a policy of closing down barracks the length and breadth of this country - of this State, in fact.

At the time, the reason the Government did this was to sell off property to the highest bidder. There was no benefit to local communities. The Government would not even grant the local authorities the land to ensure they could use it for social housing purposes. Instead, it sold it to them at a huge profit or, as in the case of Clancy Barracks in this city, it made local authorities bid against a private concern, as happened up and down the country. This is something I do not want any future Government to repeat. If the Government is contemplating closing down the barracks listed in the motion, I want an assurance that it will not sell off this land and will instead transfer it to the local authorities or organisations such as the IDA to use for proper purposes, rather than making a profit on the back of it.

If anyone goes to Clancy Barracks in my constituency, they will find it is sitting under the umbrella of NAMA because one of the big developers, P. Elliott, has collapsed and is in receivership. Most of the apartments are half built and sitting empty, and even those that are completed are sitting empty while half the site is derelict. At the time, we had asked that this land be transferred to Dublin City Council in order to redevelop the area, but it did not happen. Shame on the last Government and shame on this Government if it is contemplating doing exactly what the last Government intended to do, which is to close the barracks listed in the motion. I remember not long ago a campaign to try to prevent the closures in Cavan, Mullingar and other areas which are listed here. The new Government has just taken the clothes from the previous Fianna Fáil Government. Shame on it.

The Government amendment should give a commitment that none of this land or property will be used in any way that is detrimental to social good, and that it would be transferred to local authorities, which in many cases are in need of land to redevelop towns, for future social housing use or for social facilities such as sports facilities. In the main, however, most of these barracks should not be closed and sold off in any shape or form.

The fact this is even being contemplated, and the fact the strength and location of the Defence Forces is being dictated to us, in this State, by the IMF, proves the truth of what we said about both the Nice treaty and the Lisbon treaty, namely, that in the future our neutrality will be gone and the strength of our Defence Forces will be dictated by external forces. This is again proven here. It is even written in the Government amendment, because that ties each decision pertaining to the neutrality of this State and to what one of its backbenchers called the armed forces, that is, the Defence Forces, to dictation by an outside force, namely, the IMF and the European Union in this case. I appeal to the Government to withdraw its amendment and to support the motion tabled by Fianna Fáil, even though it is disgraceful the latter party tabled it without any hint of the embarrassment it should have, given its previous history in respect of barracks closures.

See this speech in context