Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The European Union was established to end all wars on the Continent of Europe and it has been, with a number of exceptions, remarkably successful. Everybody who identifies with the European Union is very conscious of that. Irish neutrality, as a concept and a policy, owes its origin to the slaughter of Irish men, and it was mostly men, in the First World War, who signed up for a variety of reasons to fight, as some saw it, for the freedom of small nations and ended up being slaughtered on the battlefields over a four-year period.

Does the Taoiseach support the recent statement by the Minister for Education and Skills that will see the restoration of history as a critical subject for young people in schools, particularly at secondary level, as well as at primary school level? Is it important that our young people know about this history and how wars on the European Continent largely came to an end?

In the context of the remembrance of the Great War, as it was called, does the Taoiseach propose to celebrate Irish neutrality? I know, within his own party and the party it is aligned to in Europe, as with all the other groups, there are people who are for neutrality policy and armies which are essentially for domestic defence rather than parts of greater co-operation and structures. Where do the Taoiseach's feelings lie? It is important that, as Taoiseach, he should not be dragged willy-nilly into a European federalist structure which would include the notion of a grand European army.

Does the Taoiseach accept Irish neutrality? Does he believe it should be expanded and developed and that neutrality is an especially appropriate position for Ireland, as a small country, and the other neutral European nations to take? Does he acknowledge that the respect which the Irish Defence Forces and other structures like the Garda command internationally in European peacekeeping is because we are recognised as a former colonial country which is neutral and is therefore particularly suited to helping to keep the peace and enforce peace around the world?

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