Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank our colleagues in the Rural Independent Group for giving us their time on this extremely important topic. I also thank Sinn Féin for tabling this incredibly timely motion. The discussion so far has been sad, particularly as this is such an important issue. We hear so much now about fake news because it is the order of the day, but we have had a lot of fake discussion. We have had people saying one thing when the reality is patently different. That is quite shocking and it gives on a feeling of being in "The Twilight Zone". There is a certain irony that the speaker from the Labour Party spent half her time talking about Labour's role up to the First World War. There is a reason for that. It is because the party's contribution thereafter, particularly when it has been in government, has been pretty shameful in terms of the defence of our neutrality. We do not say that to score cheap points but that is the reality and people have to own up to their political sins or crimes, whatever one wants to call them.

Deputy Wallace introduced a Bill on neutrality in the previous Dáil and, in fairness, Sinn Féin introduced a similar Bill. Now we have the Bill before us. It is more relevant now than it was then because nearly every week we are being asked to support some new assault on our neutrality. It is quite clear that the Government cares very little about that. Its view is diametrically opposed to the views of most citizens. It is precisely because we cannot leave these matters to the whim of politicians or the permanent Civil Service that we need to have our neutrality enshrined in the Constitution.

At the core of why we are not neutral is, as others have stated, what happens at Shannon Airport. I pay tribute to the two US Veterans for Peace who made such a determined and noble stance to highlight the complicity of Shannon Airport in the US war machine with their attempts to peacefully and respectfully examine US military aircraft at Shannon on St. Patrick's Day. For the stance that they took, Tarak Kauff and Ken Mayers, both of whom Deputy Wallace and I had the privilege of meeting, ended up being denied bail in Ennis District Court and being imprisoned for two weeks. Did two men, aged 82 and 77, proud, peaceful US veterans, really need to be denied bail for such a dignified protest? It is shameful and is sending out a signal to let the US know that we will take on anybody who tries to jeopardise its use of Shannon Airport.

The irony is that the lads and their colleagues who came to Ireland for St. Patrick's Day told us, as veterans who passed through Shannon Airport, that they had guns in their pockets despite the fact that we have been told here repeatedly by successive Ministers that that does not happen. Those men told us that that is what they did and what all of their colleagues did as they went through Shannon Airport. We know from our own case, in terms of when we tried to examine US military aircraft, that people gave testimony. One person had been accused of robbing some US weaponry from a ship and another from a plane and another catering worker gave evidence that he had seen weaponry on the aircraft.

What we have is an Irish solution to an Irish problem. The Government tells us that military aircraft come into Shannon Airport but they are not involved in any military exercises and are not carrying anything. It says it knows that because the US told it they are not but that does not explain how these aircraft travel two and three times a day on an annual basis now to destinations where we know appalling atrocities are being carried out with the assistance of the US military. Instead, it says the troops travel on civilian aircraft and that the civilian aircraft only carry soldiers whose weaponry is stored underneath in the hold and that they do not have access to them. That is not true. This weaponry is on board and we have direct evidence, as has the Government, that that is the case. We perpetuate a lie and pretend there are no weapons on them because we do not ask, even though everybody knows that there are and where they are going, when appalling examples have been given to various Ministers, even in recent days, of aircraft on their way to Camp Lemonnier, in Djibouti, the location for facilitating the ongoing war in Yemen. We are complicit in that situation and that is certainly not something people want.

As other Deputies said, the Irish public is very much in favour of neutrality. The Government is very much out of step with that from the battle groups, to PESCO, to Operation Sophia, and obviously to Shannon. The Minister, Deputy Coveney, said that the EU is all about peace and the rule of law. Is that really the case when we see what happened in Libya over the weekend, which we discussed earlier in the statements on the pre-European Council meeting? I was in Libya 30 years ago. I flew into a modern airport on a Libyan Arab Airlines aircraft to meet students - I was a student leader at the time - who were the best educated people in Europe and the wealthiest per head of capita. The last remaining airport in Libya, which has not had international travel for years, was bombed at the weekend, with 28 people losing their lives. Thousands of people have been killed in Libya. The country is a basket case because of regime change facilitated by powers in Europe supported by our Government. We are complicit in that and it is not what Irish people want.

The Tánaiste said earlier that he was sorry that the Operation Sophia humanitarian exercise was not back on track. He is misinformed. He is not stupid so he obviously knows what he is saying is wrong. We had the same Ministers telling us at various times that Operation Sophia was not a military exercise only to tell us at the end that it was a military exercise. Today, the Minister, Deputy Coveney, tried to tell us it is a humanitarian exercise. It is absolute and utter nonsense. That is a continuation of talking out of both sides of our mouths in terms of our neutrality.

We believe tonight's motion is incredibly important. Neutrality is not doing nothing. Neutrality is ploughing an independent furrow. People talk about defending the country. Fianna Fáil is worried about what will happen if Ireland is invaded. I am sorry, and as a proud daughter of an Army family, I believe it will not be our conventional Army that will defend us if we are invaded. I do not believe it is the €6 million the Minister is spending on anti-aircraft missiles that will defend us either if it comes to that. If we wanted to defend a country and a world, do the mathematics on it. There are more wars now, more refugees and more terrorism. I wonder if there could be a connection between that. Guess what? There is because when people are murdered in their beds, their societies are wrecked and their children are killed, that does not make them very happy. It makes them leave their homes in pursuit of a better life elsewhere. The instability is coming from that and the best stance against that is to stand for international solidarity across nations and for an end to war. We can be a proud beacon in that but to do that, the first step is enshrining this legislation in our Constitution.

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