Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

This is the week in which President Donald Trump has declared war on the people of Palestine and the wider Arab and Muslim world by recognising Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, an act which threatens to enflame conflict across the Middle East. Against that background of warmongering and increased militarism on the part of President Trump, it is more important than ever that Ireland holds onto its traditional position of military neutrality and opposition to warmongering and militarism. Yet, the Government has until this week quite successfully buried what is the biggest betrayal of Irish neutrality since the decision to allow US forces to use Shannon Airport to bomb Iraq back to the Dark Ages. The vote which will take place today on Ireland joining permanent structured co-operation on a new common defence project in the European Union is an absolute betrayal of Ireland's military neutrality. It is a step towards involvement in what is being explicitly touted by Donald Tusk, Jean-Claude Juncker, Emmanuel Macron and Federica Mogherini as a new European army and common defence pact.

The Government has buried this. It misled the Business Committee. We were briefed by the Minister of State at the Department of the Taoiseach, Deputy Paul Kehoe, who did not know much about it. Yesterday he informed us that the decision was taken on 21 November. It was not mentioned in the two subsequent meetings of the Business Committee that the Government planned to push the vote through this week. There is no doubt the Government has briefed the media that there is nothing to see here and that this is not relevant or significant, and that there are no legal implications.

The truth is that Ireland is joining a common defence pact which will require it to regularly increase defence budgets in real terms to meet the 2% of GDP benchmark. That would mean a quadrupling of Irish defence expenditure. These are binding common commitments. It will involve bringing our defence apparatus into line with other member states, establishing permanent interoperability with NATO and increasing expenditure on arms and weaponry in order to benefit the European military industrial complex.

Why has the Government misled the country and tried to bury this significant betrayal of Irish neutrality?

Apart from everything else, is this not unconstitutional? Article 29.4.9° of our Constitution states: "The State shall not adopt a decision taken by the European Council to establish a common defence pursuant to Article 42 of the Treaty on European Union where that common defence would include the State." That is our State and this is a common defence. It is explicit and anybody who doubts it should read the PESCO agreement. We are signing up to a common defence in defiance of our own Constitution. The Government has misled the public and the Dáil while playing fast and loose with the Business Committee.

See this speech in context