Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Our approach to all of the motions related to EU defence that have come before the House since the Lisbon treaty referendum result, which tied Ireland to the EDA, has been to view them with a healthy amount of suspicion given that the purpose of the agency and the intent of most of our EU partners is to achieve an EU army gradually and to increase military spending. The other aims are to increase interoperability, to make national armies indistinct from and dependent on each other and to enhance military capabilities above what is required to defend the EU, even in an armageddon scenario. Every step that further aligns us with the EU military project further erodes our neutrality and further undermines our reputation, built on UN duties which have resulted in the loss of 86 Irish soldiers since 1960.

Nobody is denying that the threat level is greater in today's world and that armies and armed groups around the world are becoming more sophisticated. There is a need to afford the soldiers of the Defence Forces the greatest level of protection possible and a need for their skills to be increasingly honed and their equipment adequate not only to protect themselves, but also those they seek to protect. This can be done without eroding our national interests or our neutrality. The State's neutrality should not be sacrificed on the altar of interoperability and greater efficiencies. It is amazing to see Fine Gael's headlong rush into the EU-led military agenda, with the support of Fianna Fáil and the Independent Alliance, while it still will not pay members of the Defence Forces a decent wage or, in some cases, even a living wage.

We are also no closer to protecting our soldiers abroad or at home from Lariam, despite a Dáil motion instructing the Minister and military to do so. We are also way behind other EU militaries in admitting the failures of the past and the legacy of very sick serving and former members of the Air Corps. None of these issues, however, gets the Government's attention in the same way as EU militarisation. The last two years have witnessed a rapid advance in the militarisation of the EU. In 2017 Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the EU Commission, proclaimed:

By 2025 we need a fully-fledged European Defence Union. We need it. And NATO wants it.

This development is facilitated by the Lisbon treaty. Sinn Féin repeatedly stated that the treaty would lead to a militarisation of the EU and the creation of an EU army. This is what we are now seeing in real time. If this motion passes today our spokesperson on defence, an Teachta Ó Snodaigh, will explain in detail his deep concerns about it and this development directly with the Minister of State in committee.

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