Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Earlier I asked about Ibrahim Halawa's case and the Minister of State might respond to that issue. I also asked about the Israeli situation, in particular, the banning of citizens travelling to Israel. Are we going to look at the possibility of lifting the EU-Israeli trade agreement? Many others have asked about the recognition of Palestine and received the standard answer that we are waiting for the right time. When is that right time?

A question I did not ask relates to the Council conclusions which noted the need to implement the common set of proposals for enhanced co-operation with NATO and that, building on that momentum, work must be taken further with even greater determination and speed. Is it not another concrete step on the road to an EU army to work in co-operation with NATO? Why is the Irish Government supporting this? Despite its impressive-sounding name, the common security and defence policy is completely misleading. The policy will improve neither security or defence and is rather an outward looking, offensive and imperialistic project. The CSDP as currently envisaged would force Ireland to increase and maintain spending on weapons and military capabilities to 2% of GDP, which is an outrageous proposal especially when our health service is in a shambles and we have one of the worst housing and homelessness crises ever to face the State. That is apart from the contradiction it presents to Ireland's neutrality in the call for an EU army and a permanent military structure.

My opposition is as much about the fact that we are continually told there is no money to invest in our public services, water infrastructure and capital infrastructure. Nevertheless, the EU wants us to spend money on militarisation. That is not my priority and it is not the priority of most people across Europe. We are being asked to increase our budget from 0.6% to 2%. It falls within the EU budgetary constraints levelled on us through the fiscal stability rules. Regardless of respecting our neutrality, why is the Government supporting these demands? Why was there no objection to this clause within the Council conclusions?

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