Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan. In time, this discussion, if the Government and Fianna Fáil do not pull back from a vote on this today, will be as of pivotal importance as previous decisions in 2003 to allow the US military to use Shannon Airport as part of the Iraq conflict, and it will be a decisive turning point in our Defence Forces history. I do not say that lightly. This is the fourth time that the triple lock provision has been invoked and put before this House in the past decade. It is not something that happens every day. It is a very serious matter for our citizens.

The triple lock was put in place to ensure our Defence Forces personnel would not take part in military alliances unless they were backed by the UN, the Cabinet and the House. This day last week, when we sat at the Business Committee, there was no mention of this being on the schedule at all. It did not even get a mention. We organised the business for the week without hearing a word of it. A day later a new schedule came out. This was on it as a motion on defence. There was to be a half hour for discussion but no further details were provided. It only emerged early this week what this measure was. The idea that we would be moving this on almost the last day of the session without adequate discussion is an affront to the citizens of the State and Defence Forces personnel, and it is undoubtedly a move in putting this country further in the direction of participation in a European army, which is not what people want.

There have been previous UN exercises. There was Operation Unified Protector in Libya, Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, and Operation Iraqi Freedom. There is not much freedom in those necks of the woods. In fact, the destabilisation of those countries is precisely why we have the number we have of refugees fleeing for their lives. Only one conclusion can be drawn as to why this is being rammed through by the Government and, in fairness, the Chief Whip spelt it out when he came back. He said that he went from the Business Committee and had a meeting with the Secretary General of the Department and the Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces, and they want it. What we have developing in this State is, in essence, a layer of career militarists who see themselves as being part of a European army and linking in with their European peers, if one likes.

It is interesting that Vice Admiral Mark Mellett was sent to Afghanistan on a NATO mission in 2004 when he was head of the Naval Service. Afghanistan is a landlocked country that does not have a river big enough for a canoe not to mind a warship, yet he was, if one likes, blooded in that investigation.

What we have here is the emergence of defence politics. Will the Minister of State answer me this? Given the active French navy has 86 ships, the Italians have 186, the Spanish have 77, the Portuguese have 37 and the Royal Navy has 78 ships, not to mention all the other countries, how come we are dealing with European naval fleets? We have eight naval vessels and coastal territory more than enough for us to defend. That is what we have here: Defence Forces. They were set up to protect our territory and our people, not to be part of offensive missions or quasi-imperialist excursions by European defence forces in Africa. However, that is what is in front of us. It is a new departure. Even at this 11th hour, I urge the Minister of State not to push this motion to a vote. It is too serious.

Other Deputies have pointed out the bitter irony in our making this decision today to join Operation Sophia in the very week it has been established as an abysmal failure. It has not met the objective of its mandate to disrupt the business model of people smuggling and has, in fact, led to a sharp increase in deaths. These points have been made by other Deputies. It will divert attention away from all of the good humanitarian work that we have been involved in. Further, Operation Sophia is more than that. Along with the €200 million EU-Libya deal signed in February, it has meant more refugees are trapped in Libya and refugees who do not drown are sent back to Libya, which is a failed state because of western interference in it in the first place.

The Minister of State knows what happens in that region. Refugee children are being sexually abused, coerced into prostitution and work, held for months and profiteered from. According to UNICEF, unofficial detention centres in Libya are controlled by the militia. People are profited from. There are thousands of migrant women and children. We have heard the appalling statements of teenage girls being forcibly injected with contraceptives in order that they can be routinely raped and not get pregnant. This is what we are breaching our neutrality to be part of. It is shocking and a shame and people would be horrified. There is the video evidence of the Libyan coast guard, which Operation Sophia is supporting and training, turning machine gun fire on packed rubber dinghies full of refugees. The EU itself, in a leaked report, has said that Libyan border management is "in a state of complete disarray and unable to combat smuggling".

Behind all this, what we do not mention and what is rarely acknowledged at EU level is the reason refugees are travelling through Libya and risking their lives and the lives of their families, which is that the EU has refused them safe passage and the safe legal routes they used to take, not to mind the disruption caused in their countries in the first place. Refugees do not want to go to sea. They do not want to risk the lives of their families in the hands of smugglers. However, we have forced them into it. Not only that, we have had an enormous profiting from the securitisation of EU borders in recent years. Some €225 million was spent on ammunition for European border guards. This involves big companies and big military development, not to mention the fact that it was the West that helped to destroy Libya in the first place and forced that failed state to close the border with Turkey.

This is a huge turning point and the history books will not look kindly on the Minister of State. It is contrary to the principles of neutrality in the Hague Convention. We should be pushing the UN to be international peacekeepers, to rescue migrants and to protect our neutrality, not participating and deviating from these policies now.

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