Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left) | Oireachtas source

I will cite Romano Prodi when he spoke of these issues and stated:

When I was talking about [a] European Army [or a battle group], I was not joking. If you don’t want to call it a European army, don’t call it a European army. You can call it “Margaret”, you can call it “Mary-Ann”, you can find any name, but it is a joint effort ... the first time you have a joint, not bilateral, effort at European level.

That is what is under discussion in the Chamber at present. An Irish entanglement in military alliances makes us complicit. It is an absolute affront to the citizens of the State, who believe in our neutrality.

It is part of a process that sees us joining the NATO Partnership for Peace, which everyone knows is a training ground for full NATO membership, and it goes hand in hand with our complicity in the daily use of Shannon Airport and in the revelations produced by Shannon Watch last week of the hundreds of permissions granted last year for overflights and landings for war planes on the way to Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, where innocent civilians are being slaughtered. We are complicit in that process and this is part of that. It has no place in a country which proclaims its neutrality, and we will be opposing it.

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