Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal North East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I take this opportunity to welcome the news tonight of the appointment of Rear Admiral Mark Mellett as chief of staff of the Defence Forces. It was my pleasure to join the Oireachtas justice committee when we were hosted at Haulbowline. We viewed the facilities and learned about the exciting plans for the Naval Service. We also had the opportunity to look at the Irish maritime energy resource cluster which is the partnership between Cork Institute of Technology, UCC and the Naval Service. The presentation given by Rear Admiral Mellett that day was one of the most inspirational I have ever listened to, whether public or private. He is an inspirational public servant and I am personally delighted at his appointment. He will be a superb, a visionary and ambitious chief of staff. It is a great appointment.

I broadly welcome a review of Ireland's defence policy and a White Paper on the issue. It is an opportunity to outline exactly how we would like a modern, efficient and professional Defence Force to stand by the long-held Irish desire for neutrality and independence, as expressed by Sinn Féin in our submission. However, I fear that this Government will use it to do the opposite, having seen successive governments repeatedly undermine Ireland's neutrality and attack the pay and entitlements of Defence Forces personnel.

The last White Paper on Defence was released in 2000. Since their founding in 1922, the Irish Defence Forces are and have been a great source of pride to the Irish people, particularly for their role in overseas peacekeeping missions. We owe a great debt of gratitude to the members of the Irish Defence Forces for their commitment to this State. We also owe it to our Defence Forces to ensure that they are equipped with everything they need to ensure that they carry out their responsibilities to the highest possible standard.

The change from a three-brigade to a two-brigade structure and the closure of barracks across the State, has sapped the morale of the Defence Forces. Not only the closures but the entire process has put stress and strain on personnel who often had to uproot from their communities and homes with their families to be placed somewhere else. As always, those who serve in our Defence Forces have now adapted to the new reality in their service tradition but the Government should not take this as an indication that all is well. It is incumbent on the Minister for Defence and the Minister of State to meet on a regular basis with PDFORRA to monitor the impact of these changes from the perspective of those serving at the coal face. I would hope the White Paper would contain a commitment to this.

The White Paper must also focus on issues concerning the Reserve Defence Force. Sinn Féin has asked members of the RDF about their impression over recent years. They are very saddened by the huge cutbacks they have faced because the RDF is a link of patriotism between our Defence Forces and our local communities. This is particularly the case for young people. I appeal to the Minister to ensure that the White Paper includes a commitment from the Government to engage on a regular basis with the RDF's representative association in order to hear its concerns and to ensure that we do not lose that which has been best about the service its members have given down the years.

I emphasise the point about regular meetings between the Minister and the representative organisations. It was one of the profound criticisms I had of the previous Minister for Defence, Deputy Shatter. As with much of the work he did it was quite arrogant and dismissive. At the end of the day if a Minister cannot listen to those representing the people at the coalface even if he or she disagrees with their assessment, how is it possible to have a partnership and truly develop? I hope the Minister is taking a very different approach. My sense from any engagements I have had with him in the time I have been here is that he is respectful and listens and engages. I wish him well in what I hope will be a very different approach from that of the previous Minister.

In emergency situations the work of the Defence Forces via the Civil Defence is immeasurable. I take this opportunity to commend the work of the Civil Defence, the ordinary people across Ireland who do extraordinary things acting in a voluntary capacity as members of communities. In this White Paper the Government must give an assurance that funding will be maintained for Civil Defence training programmes and activities. We must continue to resource the Civil Defence and give its members the necessary training. We must continue to facilitate active citizenship.

Our party is opposed to the use of the anti-malarial drug, Lariam. Many serving and former soldiers, who have been prescribed Lariam, have experienced adverse psychological effects and experienced a serious negative impact on their health and wellbeing. I urge the Minister to use the White Paper or whatever means at his disposal to ensure that no member of the Defence Forces is put at risk as a result of being given Lariam during future deployments

The core of this White Paper must be a commitment to enhance neutrality. One of the biggest developments since the first White Paper on defence in 2000 is the increased militarisation of the EU and the State's deeper integration in this military system. Sinn Féin's support for neutrality is the product of a developed and coherent republican position stretching back over 200 years of Irish history. From the beginning, Irish republicans have identified an independent foreign policy as one of the essential characteristics of the independent Irish State to which we aspire. It has always been a fundamental demand of those struggling for Irish freedom.

Sinn Féin continues this republican tradition and therefore is committed to promoting positive Irish neutrality and independent foreign policy. We believe Ireland should actively work to promote conflict resolution, peaceful democratic settlements and self-determination throughout the world.

Consecutive Irish Governments have repeatedly assured the people that they support neutrality. However, since 1997 when a previous Government signed Ireland up to NATO's ironically called Partnership for Peace, despite pre-election promises to the contrary, we have seen a repeated attack on Irish neutrality, including the US military's unfettered use of Shannon Airport, and peaking with the actions and rhetoric of the current Government. An estimated 2.25 million US troops have passed through Shannon Airport since 2002, making it a virtual forward airbase of the US military, a pit-stop on their way to the theatre of war. I remind the Minister that in the case of Iraq, it was a war that was not sanctioned by the United Nations.

The Government has refused to use its legal powers to stop and search these planes and they continue to peddle the distortion that all the foreign military aircraft that land at Shannon Airport are unarmed, carrying no arms, ammunition or explosives, and are not engaged in intelligence gathering, and that the flights do not form any part of military exercises or operations. This is despite the huge amount of evidence to the contrary that came out during the recent court cases involving Deputies Wallace and Clare Daly.

In addition the Government shamefully voted down Sinn Féin's neutrality Bill in March. The Bill sought to reaffirm Ireland's neutrality by seeking a referendum to insert neutrality into the Constitution. Even though a Peace and Neutrality Alliance-commissioned RED-C poll, published in September 2013, showed that approximately eight out of ten Irish people are in favour of neutrality - a massive and maybe unprecedented number - and despite the fact that Labour supported this same Bill in opposition, it and its Fine Gael partner voted it down. Hence my pessimism that this White Paper will help enforce and safeguard Irish neutrality.

Even at this late hour I urge the Minister to ensure that this White Paper notes that in a world where half of the population lives in poverty, with one person in every eight suffering from malnutrition, where poverty kills approximately 19 people around the world every minute, in 2011 US$1.738 trillion was spent globally on military expenditure. To ensure that we live in a safer and more equal world greater military expenditure is definitely not the solution. Instead we need to challenge the very structures that cause poverty, food insecurity and conflict.

I urge the White Paper to establish Ireland's commitment to positive neutrality, instead of veiled support for NATO and EU militarism. Positive neutrality is not about sitting on the fence. It is not about taking no action. It is not about pacifism. Sinn Féin is not a pacifist political party; I think that is pretty obvious. Consistent with the principles of international law, we believe that the use of force can sometimes be necessary as a last resort to prevent the deaths of others or the oppression of peoples. Sinn Féin makes no apologies for having recognised the right of the Irish people over the ages to use force against the British occupation of our country.

Instead positive neutrality is about actively promoting and participating in conflict resolution, demilitarisation and making politics work to redress legitimate grievances and achieve needed social changes, at both state and international levels. If we redoubled our efforts to focus on working with countries to implement global targets on issues such as land rights, climate change, citizen participation, economic equality and government accountability, the world would inevitably become a better and safer place.

Furthermore Sinn Féin fully supports the role of Irish troops in peacekeeping missions around the world under the auspices of the UN. We believe that this State's history of serving in UN blue-helmet peacekeeping missions is a matter of pride and can enhance our standing as a neutral state, and the White Paper should reflect that.

Neutrality therefore is not a policy of opting out of international affairs; rather it is a commitment to a different type of international politics focused on justice, development and human rights. The first of three pillars of a positive neutrality policy are our Defence Forces participating in UN blue-helmet peacekeeping operations.

The second pillar is an enhanced involvement in overseas development aid. I was previously the Sinn Féin foreign affairs spokesperson. Obviously as part of any portfolio one educates oneself on the issues. I was so proud to learn from the Irish NGOs working on overseas development aid that Ireland for a period had the highest per capita contribution to overseas development aid in the world. That was an immense contribution which I saw at first hand on the occasions I travelled with other members of the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade to see the impact our overseas development aid was having in the global south developing countries.

The third pillar is human rights advocacy.

In the history of this State there have been great champions of human rights and of conflict resolution. We have significant skills and a track record in conflict resolution that come from our most recent conflict. For all its limitations and continuing challenges, what we achieved collectively in the North is a beacon of hope for people in conflict around the world. Those are the three pillars of positive neutrality I would love to see our State and Government embrace. In these volatile times a strong commitment to positive neutrality in this White Paper is needed more than ever. It should not act as another Fine Gael 'beyond neutrality' document. Whatever a political party’s perspective on a matter, it is clear that the overwhelming desire of the Irish people is to actively participate in international affairs in an independent fashion and in a way that makes a real constructive impact and plays to our strengths but that fundamentally we are genuinely neutral and not associated in any way, shape or form with military alliances.

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