Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I also acknowledge the great work of the wives and partners of the Defence Forces members and the fact they have had to come to Dublin today to protest and highlight the demands for pay and conditions. It is a disgrace and the situation is getting worse and not better. My approach to all the EU defence related motions that have come before the House since the Lisbon Treaty referendum result, which tied Ireland to the European Defence Agency, is to view them with a healthy amount of suspicion, given the purpose of the European Defence Agency and most of our EU partners is to gradually achieve an EU army and to increase military spending. The other aim is to increase interoperability, make national armies indistinct from and dependent on each other and to enhance military capabilities above what would be required, even in an Armageddon scenario, to defend the EU. We acknowledge that Ireland has a unique reputation to protect in terms of our neutrality and proud record of peace-keeping with the UN over decades. Every step that further aligns us with the EU military project further erodes our neutrality and further undermines the reputation built on UN duties, which have resulted in the loss of 86 Irish soldiers since 1960. Nobody is denying the threat level is greater in today's world and that armies and armed groups around the world are becoming more sophisticated, as the Minister said in committee yesterday. There is a need to afford the soldiers of the Defence Forces the greatest level of protection possible and for their skills to be increasingly honed and their equipment adequate not only to protect themselves but also to protect those they seek to protect. That can be done without eroding our national interest and our neutrality. The State's neutrality should not be sacrificed on the altar of interoperability and greater efficiencies. In committee yesterday, I argued that one of the motions to which we are being asked to sign up, while being benign, could increase our dependence on the EU military machine. Signing up to the EU Satellite Communications Market, category B project ties our military, Army and Navy operating overseas to the same satellite communications system as most other EU countries despite the fact we already have a satellite communications contract which to date nobody has highlighted as flawed and as far as I know there is no problem with it.

I was told yesterday that the European Defence Agency system run via an Airbus Eurostar or other equivalent satellite is just a back-up. Interestingly the EDA satellite communications contract is with Airbus, which is one of the largest suppliers of such communications in the world. It is a French company with more than €14 billion turnover. While I was told - it was repeated today - there is no additional cost and it will only arise each time we use it, I believe the system will be used every time the Irish Defence Forces are on operational deployments overseas with troops of other countries because it ensures the buzzword of interoperability.

While we have signed up to interoperability on this, we are no closer to protecting our soldiers abroad or at home from Lariam, despite a Dáil motion instructing the Minister and military to do so. We are also way behind other EU militaries in admitting the failures of the past and the legacy of very sick serving and former members of the Air Corps. When will these issues get the same attention as the headlong rush into the EU-led military agenda?

On the second tongue-twisting motion before us today, the European Centre for Manual Neutralisation Capabilities, category B, I highlighted the dangerously low levels in the Defence Forces of skills in explosive ordnance disposal personnel. I am concerned that if they are away on training courses with this project, it would leave the country more exposed and put more pressures on the soldiers who are still at home and who are already over-stretched to cover call-outs. I was not reassured by the reply because it did not show how that section of the Army would grow quickly enough to address this shortfall. I also asked where within the very tight defence budget were they able to find the annual €75,000 it will cost? What will suffer as a consequence?

2 o’clock

I apologise that I am about to step out. I want to visit the protest outside and I will be back before the end of the debate.

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