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

It is what we are talking about. We are committing to the integration of Irish Defence Forces with NATO. We still have not got answers on the fact that it commits us to real increases in defence budgets, or a "successive medium-term increase in defence investment" and "increasing the share of expenditure allocated to defence research and technology". That will be reviewed on an annual basis. There is to be a national implementation plan to meet these targets. This is the military equivalent on the fiscal treaty and we are signing up to it.

President Tusk has said the purpose of PESCO is to protect the bloc from the "effects of the migrant crisis and hostile bordering states". He is referring to the 35,000 people who have drowned in the Mediterranean, thanks to fortress Europe. These people want to militarise the wall that Donald Trump dreams of building to keep out those desperate people. This is what they are about. The Government has deceived the public. I have a simple request. Give us the legal advice that this does not run counter to Article 29 of our Constitution before we have to vote today. It would come from the Attorney General and say this does not run counter to Article 29 of the Constitution.

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