Maureen O'Sullivan (Dublin Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister came into the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence yesterday and outlined all of the reasons Ireland should join PESCO. Many of us made the point about the haste in which this is happening. I compare and contrast it with when the foreign affairs committee was considering our Irish Aid policy some time ago. There were public consultations, submissions and meetings before One World, One Future was produced. Recently, we were also doing a review of Irish Aid and, again, we welcomed submissions from NGOs and the public. We had meetings and the Minister attended with his officials. To me, that is a full debate. However, this has not happened with PESCO and it should have happened because it is a major shift in our defence policy.

The principle of PESCO is to strengthen Europe's military capabilities through specific collaborative defence projects. Despite what the Minister of State, Deputy Kehoe, said yesterday about it not threatening our neutrality and legal advice being sought from the Attorney General, this is alarming. We know that Attorneys General have got it wrong in the past. Supposing we accept the view that our neutrality is unaffected because there is no agreement to come to the defence of others, nevertheless PESCO implies a much deeper defence co-operation than has been seen before. This is bringing us into a place which I believe undermines and threatens our neutrality. I also believe it is at odds with our reputation for our humanitarian work and the respect in which we are held on human rights issues and for the role we played in designing the sustainable development goals and ensuring their support from 193 countries. The word "military" does not appear anywhere in those goals and military co-operation is not seen as a way to achieve the sustainable development goals.

As a member of the foreign affairs committee and the Joint Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement, we meet delegations from countries that are in conflict. They ask us how we achieved peace here. We consistently tell them about the process of the Good Friday Agreement - the sitting down, the listening, the dialogue, the negotiations and the compromise. However, PESCO is about a military solution, which is very much at odds with our traditional role and our involvement on the international stage to date. Why are we jeopardising this? We all value the role and the work of our reputable peacekeeping forces. It seems to be suggested that those of us who are critical of PESCO and oppose it are being somehow dismissive or disrespectful of our troops. That is absolutely not the case. There is a major difference between our peacekeeping forces and similar forces of those countries with military roles in previous years. We have never had a military role which is one of the reasons our forces are held in such high regard.

The Minister tells us that there are no provisions in PESCO for a European army but that is very much at odds with what some European figures say. People have mentioned them already. In 2015, Jean Claude Juncker named PESCO as the way forward to realise his forceful calls for a European army with a budget of €38.5 billion for the years 2021 to 2027. Yet, four out of five people in this country support neutrality.

The Minister spoke about threats. There are no threats to Ireland. It is an island country. It is neutral and its policies and plans all stress that. There will be a change if we do join PESCO.

We are told Malta has a very small and limited defence capacity and therefore does not intend to participate. Malta is in the Mediterranean; we are on the periphery of Europe. It is illogical that Malta does not have to participate when we have to.

The Taoiseach said this country needs to co-operate with other countries. This is definitely the case. Military co-operation, however, is a totally different matter. There is no doubt but that we need to increase our defence budget. Surely, however, that is to improve pay and conditions for the forces and to purchase equipment.

Some of the proposed projects for PESCO are military operations. We have not been told exactly how this will be organised. What is the timeframe? What are the guidelines? Given that this measure is to go through, how will we decide the operations in which we take part and the ones in which we do not? We do not have that information, which is vital. I presume and hope there will not be a late-night telephone call between people. We saw the disastrous consequences of that in the past. Military operations in other regions, including Central America, South America, Africa and south-east Asia, are destabilising regions. They are not solving anything.

PESCO will ally us with countries that have agendas in respect of countries in Africa, countries that have mineral wealth. Some of the latter are allies of the European countries. We need to continue in our traditional role of peacekeeping and peace-building. It is in carrying out this role that we are respected and influential. One does not fight fire with fire. That is what a military solution is doing.

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