Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

As I indicated in the discussion before the motion was referred to the committee, there is something Orwellian about the Government's claim that involving ourselves in an arrangement with NATO does not impact in any way on our neutrality. The phrase "Partnership for Peace-NATO" is Orwellian, too. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation is a military alliance dominated by some of the most aggressive military and imperial powers in the world. As an organisation, it should not exist. One could have claimed a rationale for it during the Cold War, albeit I would not have. Both sides in the Cold War were aggressive imperial blocks competing for influence around the world, with devastating consequences in huge numbers of places, including South America, Vietnam, Africa and the Middle East. One can go through the list of the consequences of that geopolitical competition between NATO and the Soviet bloc. Whatever rationale there might have been for NATO before the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet bloc, there is no justification for it now. It should not exist, yet it does because the imperial ambitions of the major powers continue. They are the United States of America, Britain, France and so on. Europe is progressively aligning itself with these imperial ambitions and the expansionist and interventionist military machines.

I note some recent examples of what NATO has done. The NATO chief has lauded the bombing in Syria and commented on how wonderful it was to bomb the hell out of it. The people concerned have complimented themselves on the NATO operation in Libya. It is incredible that they could compliment themselves on it. If ever there was a disaster, it was NATO's military intervention in Libya which virtually destroyed the country. We now have a situation where desperate people fleeing parts of North Africa are being herded like slaves, abused and exploited by militias operating in the mess NATO left behind in Libya. We are co-operating with them to prevent the people in question from crossing the Mediterranean as they flee in desperation to seek a better life here. This is the mess NATO created, yet the Minister of State wants us to align with it. The Government is going to drag Ireland into Europe's moves to align itself with that alliance, while claiming that doing so somehow does not infringe our neutrality. It is preposterous and ridiculous to even make that claim. It is equally ridiculous for the Minister of State to suggest that because the immunities and so on included in the status of forces agreement between NATO and Partnership for Peace will not operate here, our neutrality will not be infringed in that manner either. Give us a break.

We have seen 2 million US soldiers pass through Shannon Airport to prosecute a war in Iraq which has completely destroyed that country. We have participated in it by allowing these troops to pass through Shannon Airport. The consequences for Iraq and the entire region have been a disaster, just as those of us who mobilised for the protest in 2003 warned. Our worst case estimates of what the war would cost Iraq were, in fact, dwarfed by its murderous reality. I remember writing an article iinThe Irish Times prior to the war in which I included estimates from some groups that up to 50,000 people would die in Iraq if the war went ahead.

Credible estimates now put the death toll in Iraq as a result of the war at in excess of 1 million people. The greatest refugee crisis in the modern history of the world resulted from it, with approximately 4 million people displaced. Iraqi society was absolutely devastated and will probably never recover. Depleted uranium munitions are all over Iraq, poisoning and deforming children not even born and will do so for generations, munitions used by the very powers the Minister of State wants to align us with. The mess in Syria today would not have happened if it was not for that military intervention in Iraq. It is a direct consequence. The growth of ISIS and everything else is a direct consequence of the Iraq war, and the Minister of State wants us to align with these people and claims it does not infringe on our neutrality. It is dishonest nonsense.

If the evidence of what NATO and the powers central to it have done, and I could give many more examples but I do not have time, is not enough in and of itself, what are the European promoters of European militarisation saying about their project? They are saying they are developing a European army. Merkel said it explicitly in the European Parliament in recent weeks. Macron says we are developing a European army. Tusk says we are developing a European army. Mogherini says we are developing a European army. Every major promoter of the Common Security and Defence Policy, CSDP, and what was inserted into the various treaties to institutionalise this evolving military structure has said it is about developing a European army, but the Minister of State comes in here and says it will have no impact on Irish neutrality and everything is fine. It is ridiculous. He knows it is ridiculous. Everybody knows it is ridiculous. Opinion polls have shown the population thinks it is ridiculous because they believed it was wrong for us to facilitate US troops in the Iraq war, and the majority believe these measures are infringing on our neutrality.

The Minister of State resists properly defining neutrality because the fact it is not properly defined allows him to claim this ridiculous Orwellian suggestion that we are not eroding or destroying our neutrality. The Hague Convention's definition of neutrality when applied to what we did at Shannon would clearly put us outside any meaningful definition of neutrality because we allowed forces engaged in conducting a war, aggressive military action, to use our territory to do that, providing logistical support for it. That breaches neutrality. It is only because the Minister of State resists defining it that it is not clearly set out in the Constitution and law. Therefore he can make these ridiculous claims.

It will not make any difference, and I know the Minister of State will get up and just repeat again and again that this will not impact on our neutrality and Fianna Fáil will do the same. Let us tell the truth. What is the dirty secret of all of this? We are afraid to say "boo" to the US. That is the truth. Everybody knows it is the truth. We would not dare suggest to the US it should remove its troops from Shannon or in any way question its right to act as a global policeman. That is the reality. At least it would be honest if the Minister of State just said this is the real reason we are shredding our neutrality. On the 100th anniversary of the Dáil, this is poignant. Among other things, the Irish revolution was against empires. That is what it was about. Fundamentally, it was against empires, but what the Minister of State is doing is progressively dragging us into the imperial project that is NATO and, frankly, it is quite shameful.

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