Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

-----but we have repeatedly come into this House on the side of peace and trying to get a more equal world to ensure we will not have wars on an ongoing basis. Speaking several years ago about the arms trade, Desmond Tutu said he had learned a lot about the business of war. He continued:

In my opinion [the arms trade] is the modern slave trade. It is an industry out of control: every day more than 1,000 people are killed by conventional weapons. The vast majority of those people are innocent men, women and children.

In the two minutes I have remaining, I do not have time to go through 20 years of the ongoing militarisation of Europe, starting with the Maastricht treaty and going on to include permanent structured co-operation, PESCO, the European Defence Agency and the European Defence Fund. All the while, the drums of war being beaten by the arms industry have had an open door into Europe and determining a strategic compass when we should be looking at a moral compass.I make no apologies for raising my voice, something I rarely do, for peace. We should be using our neutral strong voice to bring peace and to ensure our role on the Security Council is not used in a way that is warmongering with the EU leaders who have done it for years. Look at what Josep Borrell Fontelles has said. Look at the comment of Jean-Claude Juncker that we need a fully fledged European defence force. Look at what the arms company Raytheon said. It said, "We are not vendors; we are partners." They are not vendors. Can you imagine? Such is the obfuscation of language. When war is discussed, it is masked with a peace facility. There is discussion of battle groups and it is stated they are for peace.

I am totally opposed to the militarisation of Europe. I am totally opposed to using this horrific war to further more wars. I am appealing to the Minister to use Ireland's voice in the world of diplomacy to ensure we can get peace as quickly as possible and to stop further needless deaths. The President of Ukraine has spoken about having a neutral Ukraine. I do not think he is happy about that but he would certainly be agreeable to it as one of the many components involved in reaching a peaceful solution to this crisis. I do not know why the voice of Ireland, as a neutral country, was not raised previously in respect of Ukraine being a neutral country. . That could be one of many components to ensure a lasting peace. The Acting Chairman asked me to stop, so I will stop.

See this speech in context