Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I too am delighted to be able to speak on the motion. When I was young we fed the hens presto. When I heard PESCO discussed at the Business Committee I thought the reference was to presto. PESCO is Permanent Structured Cooperation.

Nothing is simple or laissez-faireabout this. It is a permanent process. The Government is pulling a fast one. The Ceann Comhairle chairs the Business Committee and I respect the great job he does both there and in the House. I wish him a happy Christmas.

There were three Business Committee meetings about this. As has been stated by many others, there was no mention of it until recently. It was approved by the Cabinet on 15 November. The Rural Independent Group will bring a motion before the House next Tuesday night at 9 p.m. and we have to give at least two if not three weeks notice of our intentions or what we will debate. That is only right. The Government, on the other hand, can come here to pull this out of a lucky bag when it is nearly Christmas week. It tells us it will be grand and hopes we will be distracted with everything on Grafton Street and a feeling of being jolly and merry so we will approve the motion. It is underhanded, deceitful and disrespectful to the House, its Members and all the people. It is the first time since the formation of the Business Committee in this Dáil that a majority opposed Government business. We have been co-operative and we work together to try to organise business and get legislation passed. Often, we do our best in a hurry. I am a member of the Business Committee and this has been bulldozed through.

We thought we might have the start of an election campaign last week so what would have happened then? There would have been no PESCO or pesto or anything else; we would have been knocking on doors looking for pesto or some bit of sustenance from households to keep us going. Perhaps a bowl of porridge or hot soup, for example. Where would it have been then? If it is so important to approve this before the December deadline, what would have happened if the House was imithe? We would not be discussing it at all. Much pressure is being applied, along with underhanded work I do not like.

I fully support our Army and its proud record over decades. We had a very fine barracks in Clonmel but the Government took that away from us too. We kept Cromwell out of Clonmel but we could not keep out big Phil and the Fine Gael gang. They destroyed the place by taking the corporation and the barracks out of it. They took mental health facilities out of it. Defence Forces personnel are now dispersed over the country with no travelling expenses. Last week we had a debate watched by the wives and partners, fathers and mothers, uncles, aunts, sons and nephews of Defence Forces personnel. They are proud people and are being reduced to penury. They are in receipt of family income supplement, not able to put food on the table for their kids. We saw an exposé on RTÉ about this. It would be better for the Government to support the Army we have and treat it with respect.

We go on television praising the work done by the Army and Irish Navy on humanitarian missions in the Middle East and other areas. It is very important we recognise it but we cannot have it on the cheap or a shoestring. We must support the personnel and give them proper training, equipment and, above all, a decent wage so they can raise their family with some modicum of dignity and ease rather than scrounging from one week to the next. I do not see many television programmes but I saw this one and it was harrowing to see wives trying to manage until the next paycheck and get support from families. We need to put our money where our mouth is and support the Army rather than have it linked to something like this.

We do not know the parameters of this PESCO process. I do not like it anyway. Deputy Lisa Chambers has gone but as I said last week, she might as well be sitting where the Minister of State is because she was more passionate about this than he was. She told us about it last week and today. She can spare me the lecture as I do not need a lecture from Deputy Chambers or anybody else, saying we are anti-this or anti-that and we do not support our Army. We do, of course, and we want it to be supported, respected and paid. We do not wish to be led, blindfolded, into a position in which we should not be. We have the name of a neutral country and I want to keep it.

I am also questioning the use of Shannon Airport, certainly when it comes to soldiers passing through. We are told the American soldiers going to Afghanistan and the Middle East are unarmed when they go through Shannon Airport but there are other shipments. If the Minister - the Taoiseach, in this case - was here he could tell us how many aircraft with armaments have passed through our State. I was in the right place at the right time and saw letters that needed to be signed to agree passage of a number of planes with deadly munitions that create havoc. There is no accountability to the House for that either.

This started back with the Lisbon treaty. I will put my hand up and say that like an eejit, I was a member of the great party that voted for the treaty. I campaigned the first time but not the second time. We saw the trouble that British people have with Brexit. They did not reject the view of the people and they are trying to deal with it. We are dealing with those consequences. We went back and fooled the people. It was a question of kid me twice and catch the people a second time. That is what happened. We had a second referendum on the Lisbon treaty, which was the genesis of this process of undermining our neutrality. It took control from our people and sovereign Parliament. It is a while ago and I suppose we should have seen alarm bells ringing then. I was not a Deputy then but I was cannon fodder in a political party when one shuts up and does what one is told. The task was to admire the great leader and accept the whip. I am thankful I have been unshackled and I have the best freedom of my life. I can speak as and when I wish on whatever topics I choose. Most important, I can vote as I wish rather than getting an instruction from the Whip, with a call to the office if I vote the wrong way or miss a vote. It is a great feeling of energy, enthusiasm and vibrancy, if anybody is thinking of it. I can do as I like. I serve one master, which is me, as well as the public.

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