Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

There is a contradiction in the Minister of State's answer. On the one hand, he states the budget will not increase but then he states it will be increasing anyway and it will be covered as part of that. It is a simple fact that the notification to which we signed up last week, thanks to Fine Gael and its friends in the Independent Alliance and Fianna Fáil specifically has the commitment to "regularly increasing defence budgets in real terms in order to reach agreed objectives". As PESCO commitments are binding, we have to increase that expenditure. There is no solace to be had by saying it might have increased anyway because the type of increased expenditure Members would seek are improvements to the pay, conditions and pension entitlements of Defence Forces personnel, not expenditure on a project that is clearly driven by the arms industry across Europe. It is uncontested that PESCO, along with the European Defence Fund, is driven by arms manufacturers sitting at the heart of the European Commission. We are talking about €6 billion a year in grants to the arms industry from EU member states under PESCO. The Minister of State needs to explain it a little more.

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