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

It is a very strange definition of neutral. Yesterday, the Minister expressed concern because the Chief of Staff met the Russian ambassador. To me, neutral would mean that he would express similar concern if the Chief of Staff met the US ambassador or the head of NATO or at the fact that leading powers inside the European Union are looking for and, indeed, have achieved closer integration with NATO, which is a military and nuclear alliance. It is not some sort of benign body. It is the outworking of western, US-led expansion towards Russia, which is now provoking a dangerous escalation in Ukraine. Against that background, the voice of neutrality is to say that we do not pour petrol on a fire by arming up, spending more on weapons and expanding NATO, but by doing the opposite and saying that we do not need militarisation, which is not the solution to these sorts of situations.

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