Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

However, the likelihood that this State would have had its neutrality respected by a victorious Germany is minimal. I will refer to one of the classic confirmations of this point. Anyone who has had the opportunity to visit the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, will discover a map in the memorial that details the numbers of Jewish communities across Europe designated for elimination. There is a reference to the exact number of the members of the Irish Jewish community, who were designated by Nazi Germany for elimination.

In the context of this Bill, I constantly made a point during the Seanad debate, which was repeated by my colleague, the Minister of State at the Department of Defence, Deputy Kehoe, who took Second Stage in this House.

We should not in any circumstances devalue the contribution made by members of the Defence Forces who served this State loyally, remained members of the Defence Forces during the Second World War, which we termed The Emergency, and who performed a very important public duty. However, in acknowledging the service they gave, it is right that we acknowledge the service given by the members of the Defence Forces who left this island without permission and joined the Allied forces, with the vast majority joining the British forces, and who contributed to the victory against intolerance, totalitarianism and fascism.

I welcome the support expressed by Members of the House for this measure. I hope its enactment will be seen by the families of many of those who conducted themselves thus and fought, as a recognition of the contribution they made to protect decency and democracy and as an apology from the State for the manner in which those brave men - our Defence Forces were men only in those days - were treated. They fought against those who would have brought tyranny not just to the United Kingdom but possibly to this island and this republic.

There were some interesting contributions to the debate, although I do not wish to engage in a lengthy discussion of some of the issues. Deputy Finian McGrath made an interesting contribution, which replicated contributions he has made at the justice and defence committee when dealing with defence issues. We are all opposed to war. War is not a good thing. People dying and being wounded is not a good thing. Unfortunately, however, there are bad people in the world and occasionally states must defend themselves. There are bad people who will kill people, and that is the reason we need armies that are properly equipped. I noticed with interest the Deputy's comment that we must empower the UN to stop wars. Is he suggesting that the United Nations should develop its own army of tens of thousands of people and where should they be located? The UN can pass motions and urge that war to stop. It is sometimes powerless to achieve anything.

Consider the tragedy being played out in Syria at present. Over 70,000 people have lost their lives and we do not know how many hundreds of thousands have been wounded or seriously wounded. There are approximately 1.2 million refugees from Syria. The UN is powerless to do anything about it. I could refer to a number of other conflict zones around the world about which there have been UN motions and in which there are UN troops trying to preserve the peace. Without the presence of those armed UN troops the peace would not be preserved. There are also parts of the world where in the past UN troops have had to be withdrawn when conflicts have arisen because they did not have the capability or capacity to end the conflict. Yes, we are all against war, but we must be realistic and ensure this country's Defence Forces are fully and properly equipped to do what they can to contribute to UN peace missions. However, merely wishing wars and bad people away does not work, unfortunately.

Deputy Simon Harris made an interesting contribution about the threats that confront us today. I do not wish to turn this into a debate on neutrality as that is a discussion for another day. People have different views on the importance of neutrality and what it means. However, Deputy Harris is right on one matter. There are some issues in the world today in respect of which neutrality is irrelevant, regardless of how much one talks about it. No Member of this House, for example, is neutral about what we believe to be the terrorist atrocity perpetrated in Boston yesterday. Nobody is neutral about international terrorism. No Member of this House believes that suicide bombers are to be encouraged. We all disagree with that. Dealing with international terrorism is something on which states must co-operate and concepts of neutrality become meaningless in the current world.

Consider the area of cyber security. A massive cyber attack can undermine essential utilities in a state and access government departments. If a state does not have adequate defences, it could effectively paralyse services and create substantial disruption for civilians. Is anybody neutral about cyber security? Of course they are not. We live in a far more complex world today than the world of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. It is good to discuss these issues without coming to them with any prior assumptions about them. However, that is a discussion for another day.

I thank everybody who contributed to the debate. There were very interesting contributions. I was particularly fascinated Deputy Ó Cuív's contribution in which he referred to some of the people from this State who fought in the Second World War, their circumstances and where they came from. Although I was unable to be here for the start of Second Stage, I read the transcript of the debate.

It is good that we can unite behind this Bill. The Bill is important to a substantial number of families in the State, and it was correct of some Deputies to acknowledge that. It is also a small additional brick in the wall of reconciliation between the island of Ireland and the island of Britain, as well as being a small brick in the wall of reconciliation between the North and the South. In the Seanad I referred, as did my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Kehoe, at the start of this debate, to the fact that many thousands of Irish men who fought on the Allied side in the Second World War - not just those who may have deserted our Defence Forces but the many thousands of others who simply decided to join up - were effectively airbrushed out of our history for far too long. As we went through school none of us would have known the fact that approximately 60,000 people from what was then the Free State, later the Republic of Ireland, joined the British armed forces and fought. I discovered during my visit to Australia that a significant number of Irish people who had emigrated to Australia in the years prior to the Second World War fought with the Australian army, navy and air force and some fought with the New Zealand forces as well. A considerable section of the history of many families in this country has been airbrushed out of the history we were taught in schools and the history that I suspect is still taught in schools. In addition to providing for the apology and amnesty, this Bill is bringing those who fought out of the shadows and into a visible part of the history of this State and the history of many families.

I look forward to bringing the Bill through Committee and Report Stages and to its early enactment.

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