Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

With regard to NATO and NATO's presence in various countries, we respect the sovereignty of other countries to decide what they want to do for themselves. If Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, almost all the countries in the EU along the Mediterranean and Turkey want to be part of NATO, that is a matter for them. We decided not to be because we have a policy of military neutrality. We are not part of NATO. NATO has not expanded. These countries decided to join NATO, mainly because they reasonably see a massive threat to their territorial sovereignty beside them.

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