Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will not start naming individual countries but the statements in the White Paper are about promoting innovation through the Defence Forces. Public private partnerships between the Defence Forces and private, predominantly Irish, companies are well under way and have been very successful. We are developing new designs, technologies and innovations that may well be very useful to the Irish Defence Forces or may have a very useful application in the civilian world and have nothing to do with defence or military capacity whatsoever. If 9,500 people are training and have a lot of equipment, it makes sense to match up that equipment with some of the need that is out there in the private sector to test, design and develop new technologies. We are doing this in a spirit of innovation, not in a spirit of war-making. The Deputy has probably read the White Paper. It is an assessment of risk and is consistent with Irish foreign policy in terms of neutrality. It is about promoting peace and stability worldwide and providing basic security response capacity in Ireland.

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