Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputies Boyd Barrett, Ó Snodaigh, Healy and Clare Daly - I apologise if I have omitted anybody - because without the voice of the Opposition demanding a debate on this and continually raising it this week both at the Business Committee and on the floor of the House, we would not be having this debate. It was clear that the Government did not want to have a discussion and that this was being quickly sneaked through. Without those Deputies we would not be having this discussion.

It is remarkable that defence spending will jump from €900 million per year to between €3 billion and €4 billion per year. It is remarkable given that this is a day after we lost another homeless woman on the streets of this State. We cannot house the homeless and we cannot provide pension equality for people who are retiring. We are told it cannot be done because it would cost €70 million. Suddenly, however, we can find all these billions to fund arms. We need homes and decent pensions; we do not need arms. The aim of this measure is not about keeping us safe from terrorism. The terrorism is what is going on here.

I listened to what the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Deputies said. They believe this is about co-operation and genuine peacekeeping but the reality is that it is about co-operation with NATO and more involvement in spending on the European Defence Fund. Deputy Lisa Chambers and others refuse to see that it is about the creation of a European army. The word "army" means aggression. It means tackling problems with arms, bombs, bullets, guns and heavy machinery. That is something Fine Gael has always supported but our Constitution and our people are clear that we are not aggressors. If we are peacekeepers, we are not being paranoid or hysterical about this. We were painted that way by the Tánaiste this morning, but there is nothing hysterical or paranoid about it. The elite in Europe must be delighted that it is giving us its backing and solidarity on Brexit and that we will support the elite on this destruction and the capacity it will give it to create a big army across Europe.

This is about military intervention. We should reflect on the military intervention of the great imperial powers of Europe and what it has done in terms of humanitarianism. At present, we are seeing the re-emergence of slavery in Libya. Europe has a pact with Libya whereby Europe pays it to keep refugees inside Libya. It pays Libya to keep the people who are being held up for sale by marketeers - "Buy this young man. He is a good strong young man and you can bid for him now." It is a return to the heavy old days prior to the American and French revolutions when there were no such things as liberty, equality and fraternity. That is where the population of the world that is fleeing destitution, famine and war is heading, caused in no small measure by military intervention in the past by the French, British and Portuguese when they scrambled for Africa and the Middle East and left a legacy of terrorism behind them. This latest move is being driven by the same interests, particularly of current French and German imperialism.

European humanitarian credentials are with the more than 30,000 people drowned in the Mediterranean and those imprisoned in the condemned camps of Libya, Macedonia, Greece and elsewhere. People are being raped, abused, tortured and starved in these camps and we pay for that to happen because we pay those states to keep the people there. Those are our humanitarian credentials. We are jumping from that to spending a pile of money on militarism and saying that we wish to support this European project. We want to back this racist, brutal European project on the basis that PESCO is supposed to be about keeping us safe from terrorism. However, it is about entrapping tens of thousands of people in the most miserable conditions.

I will conclude with a comment on the soldiers, sailors and military personnel of this country. They know the reality of serving in the Defence Forces. We have discussed it in the House but they live it. That reality is living on impoverished wages and in bad conditions. Many personnel must rely on family income supplement and many of them had their families outside the gates of Leinster House last week protesting against the poverty wages, the conditions in which they live, the lack of payment for overtime and the closure of barracks which meant they had to move many miles away from their original homes. They do not get travel allowance and many personnel have admitted that they have had to live in their cars because they cannot afford the obnoxious and inflated rents throughout the State. We cannot take our Defence Forces personnel out of poverty and give them decent wages and conditions but, overnight, we can increase our defence budget to support a European aggression project and NATO.

Finally, shame on the Minister, the Government and particularly the Independent Alliance Members who are propping up the Government if we are forced to vote on this today. The record of Deputies Finian McGrath and John Halligan is one of being on the side of anti-imperialism, standing with the anti-war movement, opposing troops in Shannon and opposing the type of NATO project which this measure will support. They should think twice before they allow the Government to push ahead with the vote in these circumstances. This requires a great deal of public debate and legislative scrutiny. We want to know if the Attorney General has given the Government advice on the constitutionality of this move. The Government must answer questions before it forces this down the throat of the Irish public.

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