Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I profoundly disagree with the sentiments expressed by the last speaker. In fact, we are not departing from anything. We are merely participating in what we have participated in for many years, much to our credit and the credit of our Defence Forces. It is far from the case that we are departing into the darkness. In fact, what we are required to do on an ongoing basis is to be absolutely certain that our Defence Forces are upgraded in accordance with best practice. The reason is that defence forces may have to relate to and communicate with one another right across Europe, while engaged in peacekeeping or addressing a threat to security.

While Ireland is a neutral nation and will remain so - we are very proud of our neutrality - it still needs to have some access to the best training available and to have our Army, Naval Service and Air Corps involved in the training taking place in the jurisdictions of our neighbours.

One should remember we are now entering a slightly different security situation. With Brexit, a new scene is developing, and we need to be alert to it. I do not live in a constituency with military bases - I did for quite a long time, as the Ceann Comhairle knows - but I am aware that, much to the country's credit, our Defence Forces have deported themselves very well all over the world. They interacted with all armies in a peacekeeping and peace-securing capacity. They paid the ultimate price in many cases for the UN, in various locations.

This is not a new phenomenon. It is something we need to be quite clear about. We need to protect our Defence Forces so they will be best equipped to deal with any situation that may arise. It may arise here or in peacekeeping circumstances but, regardless of where it arises, it is imperative that the Defence Forces be equipped properly. It would be totally and grossly unfair to expect them to take on a role, be it peacekeeping, peace-supporting or peace-enforcing, in any location unless they are as well equipped as everybody else.

The important point is that we should not expect the Defence Forces to be just as good as other defence forces; we expect them to be better. They have always been better. We need to be absolutely certain that the provisions we sanction in this House are produced on the basis of what we know of the past performance of the Defence Forces and what they are likely to be called on to do in the future. If we do so, we will be doing something in support of them, their families and what they need when they engage as part of an international peacekeeping force or in other circumstances, as in Africa, eastern Europe and all over the globe in the past.

It would be wrong for us to in any way downgrade them and to dismiss them as if we were somehow entering into a new era that we or they have never known about before. They have distinguished themselves in those situations in the past. Would anybody expect that the Army would be equipped in the same way today as it was in the 1960s? Would anybody expect us to have an Army that would put up with that? Would anybody expect us to have an Army that could defend itself if we were only to equip it in the same fashion as it was equipped in the 1960s, when it first went abroad, and paid a high price for it? We should have learned a lesson then. I think we did learn a lesson.

Without a shadow of a doubt we are neutral but we are still part of an international community. I hate to have to mention it but many countries were neutral at the time of the Second World War and their neutrality was not always respected. There is a need for us to have our own well-equipped Defence Forces capable of undertaking whatever is required in a situation of neutrality but at the same time, given the history of the Defence Forces, to be able to engage with and work along with other defence forces involved in similar peacekeeping arrangements.

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