Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister tells us that this paper will deal with the challenges of a changing world but he forgot to tell us that the changing world has been driven by a huge expansion in the militarisation of the planet in recent years. The Irish Times today claims to have seen a copy of the draft White Paper, a privilege we did not have. That is how it works. It stated that the emergence of extremist groups in Syria, Iraq and Libya is playing a major part in the evolution of terrorist threats and that there is also concern about the process of radicalisation. There is a range of influences, including the Internet, which can enable this process. It states that authorities here are concerned about the threat of lone wolf terrorists and the possibility of terrorist groups using the State as a base. All of these concerns share the same misconception. They cut off the phenomenon of terrorism from the context of the real world that surrounds terrorist acts, limiting our attention to the symptom not the cause of terrorism. This is not in the least surprising because this obscuring of the truth allows us to avoid owning up to any responsibility for the events in the Middle East and northern Africa, as well as the few terrorist attacks on mainland Europe.

It is pretty clear to anyone who sees the Orwellian newspeak spouted by neo-liberal Western governments that this terrorist threat is always blown way out of proportion and that there would be very little terrorist threat if the US-led perpetual war on terror had not been raging for the past 15 years. What is also painfully clear is that the biggest threat of a terrorist attack in Ireland comes as a direct result of the continuation of the Government’s policy that allows the US war machine to use Shannon Airport as a forward military base for its never-ending war on whoever it sees as the most expedient fodder for its guns, tanks and bombs.

All this death, destruction and war mongering continues so that the war industry can keep its profits high. In 2014 the global military expenditure was more than €1,500 billion. That is incredible. The armed American men and women we allow pass through our borders are the invading force that, according to the Washington, DC-based Physicians for Social Responsibility have killed more than 2 million civilians. This Nobel peace-prize winning doctors’ group is the first to tally up the total number of civilian casualties from US led counter-terrorism interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That there is not one mention of this fact or any reference to the US military’s use of Shannon in the Green Paper on defence is fascinating. It tells us either that the Government and its policy makers are completely ignorant of the fact that allowing a military force to pass through their territory on their way to various theatres of war is a defence policy decision, or they are aware this is the case and think that by ignoring it they can pretend that neutral little Ireland had no part in it. Both positions are reprehensible. If the Government and police authorities were really concerned about the threat of terrorism, the first and most significant step to combat this perceived threat would be to put an end to the military stopovers at Shannon and the flyovers of the military planes.

Ireland is faced with real threats, climate change and widespread poverty and the Government is doing next to nothing about them. The Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Kelly, produced one of the worthless pieces of climate change legislation yet seen in Europe, kicking the can down the road and refusing point blank to commit to any national emissions targets.

On the poverty front, we are firing ahead with the firesale and privatisation of national assets and the public services that are essential to those who need public services more than most; implementing tax cuts that benefit the wealthy instead of investing in services such as quality child care; free health care and education that would dramatically improve the quality of life of many of Ireland’s less well-off people. Underneath all this the neo-liberal austerity policies that have led to a huge growth in the levels of inequality in Ireland are still firmly in place.

Last week, the Government laid the terms of the low pay commission before the House. The bottom line of those terms is that our competitiveness on the international markets would always come before the best interests of the Irish people when making recommendations on the national minimum wage.

The Green Paper on defence made for strange reading. In fairly vague language it skirted around the idea of making Ireland even less neutral than it already is; suggesting that it might not be the best course of action to throw out the triple lock mechanism but that we should keep it in mind for the White Paper. In a particularly ominous passage the Green Paper states:

We must now look to the future. Our traditional policy of military neutrality was formed in an era when the risk of inter-state conflict was the key issue of national security for most nations. However, the current broad range of threats does not fall into this category and military neutrality is immaterial for threats that are generic and transnational in character e.g., cyber-security or terrorism.

It was mooted in part 5 of the Green Paper that we might engage in a little disaster capitalism and commit research funding to advancing Defence Forces’ capability development and that “the Government agreed that Enterprise Ireland could also support Irish based enterprise and research institutes, the Department of Defence and Defence Forces Capability Development, where appropriate in relation to European Defence Agency ongoing activities.” It seems that the Government’s position is one of never let a good crisis go to waste. Are we really planning to join the list of countries that profit from the industry of war, death and State surveillance? Coronary heart disease, heart attacks and lung cancer are three of the biggest causes of death in Ireland. Rather than investing in an economic sector that sells technology that kills people and strips them of their human rights we should probably spend more on technology that saves lives, on the public health system in general, on promoting sport and activities that lead to healthier lifestyles.

The Minister and I know that we have different takes on how the world operates but the Minister must find the statistics chilling: more than €1,500 billion spent on arms; the Americans are deemed to be responsible for the deaths of more than 2 million civilians in 15 years, how mad is all that? Why do we have to bury our heads in the sand? The idea that we are not complicit in these atrocities by allowing them to use Shannon is not a rational argument. I do not understand how the Minister, who is an intelligent man, does not see that we are complicit by allowing Shannon to be used as a US military base.

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