Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Our neutrality should never be confused with the idea of Ireland being indifferent or uninterested in world affairs or indifferent to the suffering of oppressed peoples globally. A constant snide attack on those of us on the left who are on this side of the House has often been how obsessed we are with far-flung conflicts and the plight of oppressed people in other parts of the world, for which we are often criticised and slagged off. That is why we stood with Black Lives Matter, why we protested against Donald Trump, why we marched against the war in Iraq, and why we highlighted and opposed the brutal thugs and dictators, wherever they came from, be it Saudi Arabia, China, Burma and Egypt. It is why we marched and defended refugees coming here and why we railed against the treatment of thousands who drowned, and are drowning, in the Mediterranean or freeze, as we speak, on the Poland-Belarus border.

I welcome the new-found conscience of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael regarding Ukrainian refugees but I cannot help but measure, and we have been trying to do this over the past few weeks, the spectacular hypocrisy involved in the attitude to those from Afghanistan, Yemen or Syria who seem less worthy of human empathy than we are now told is officially sanctioned and paid for. That is not to detract at all from the suffering of the Ukrainian people. We are not neutral when it comes to human solidarity and opposing warmongers and dictators of any colour or creed. As has been said, we are always on the side of the oppressed. In the words of James Connolly and the generation of socialists and republicans whose struggle gave birth to this State, "We serve neither King nor Kaiser". Today, we serve neither Putin nor NATO, or any other imperial block.

Neutrality is not the absence of feeling or action. It is a defiant pledge of independence from all imperial blocks and military alliances in a world that is increasingly and dangerously dividing into competing blocks and breeding conditions for more and more wars, deaths, immense suffering and displacement of millions of people around the globe. Whatever about our concern regarding the double standards when it comes to the treatment of refugees, it is nothing compared with the revulsion we feel when we hear commentators and Deputies salivating at the thought of Ireland growing up and joining NATO or some NATO-aligned military set-up. We need a version of mature debate without showing our willingness to send off young men and women to die in foreign fields.

In fairness to the Minister's party, and others who have been consistent, it has never hidden its desire to ditch neutrality. Neither has Fianna Fáil, when it has inventively ignored the policy of neutrality whenever the opportunity arose. For that party, neutrality was more honoured in the breach than the observance. That inventiveness has meant genuflecting to neutrality, while also doing whatever it wanted in many cases. Article 28 of the Constitution states: "War shall not be declared and the State shall not participate in any war save with the assent of Dáil Éireann." Despite that, the inventiveness of this establishment's attitude to neutrality has meant acceding to whatever whims the US empire has had. If it wanted to move 3 million troops through Shannon in pursuit of criminal wars, it was told to go ahead. It has also meant the following: joining permanent structured co-operation; Ireland joining the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force mission in Afghanistan in 2001; Irish troops being deployed on NATO-led missions in Europe in 2017; Ireland joining NATO's Partnership for Peace in 1999; Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael voting against a Bill to enshrine neutrality in the Constitution in 2003; and co-operating with rendition flights, turning a blind eye to the horrors of western-backed regimes, such as the Saudis, and promising to bump up military expenditure and co-ordination with the European Union and NATO armaments and hardware.

Our traditional policy of neutrality, like many other traditions, has always been seen by Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil as something that it is useful to genuflect to from time to time but which can always be rendered redundant when it is convenient. We have now discovered that the horrors of the Russian invasion have given the Government the right to ditch that genuflection to neutrality. It has now professed that alliance must mean full-blown support for NATO or another European Union alliance. The only problem, of course, is that the Government intends to march us to war under future alliances without giving the people of this country a say in the matter via a referendum. It is imperative that we have a mature debate. The Minister said we need to have mature debate. Let us do so and let us also have a referendum.

I appeal, as Deputy Paul Murphy did, to the Green Party. I call on it to live by its conscience and principles, if it still has them, and refuse to vote against this Bill.

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