Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The Minister for Defence began his opening contribution by expressing one sentiment with which I agree and another with which I thoroughly disagree. I agree wholeheartedly with the Minister that "[m]embers of the Defence Forces are called upon to undertake difficult missions and we remember those who have made the ultimate sacrifice in the service of the State, including on overseas peace support operations in support of the United Nations." We should commend our troops on their peacekeeping efforts, civil endeavours, operations in the Mediterranean and risking their lives in dangerous situations. Ireland's military enjoys a good reputation internationally precisely because of the tradition of neutrality which Deputy Paul Murphy and many others in Fine Gael want to jettison. We have a history as a nation which freed itself from colonial and imperial domination. Irish people are respected in the Middle East because we fought empires and we are regarded as a state founded in opposition to empire.

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