Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Along with many others, I am working very hard to minimise the impact of Brexit across all areas and ensure that Ireland and the UK continue to co-operate in partnership on a range of issues, as would be expected of two neighbouring countries.

The idea that the Deputy has a problem with military personnel training abroad to ensure we have the most advanced training capabilities available to us when we are training soldiers, Air Corps personnel and naval officers is bizarre, frankly. Ireland is not a member of NATO and is not going to join it. We are not compromised by our relationship with NATO. We are a neutral State that is militarily non-aligned and we behave as such. That does not mean that we do not speak to NATO or engage in overseas peacekeeping operations in a way that is linked to NATO, as we have done in the past. We currently work with NATO on operations in Kosovo, for example, and we previously worked with it on de-mining in Afghanistan. There is nothing wrong with that. It does not mean that we are compromised in any way. Rather, it means we focus on interoperability to ensure that when we have peacekeeping missions abroad, we can work with others to make sure we protect our troops and do a good job.

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