Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

At the outset, I offer my support and my sympathy to the people of Ukraine in the face of the vicious war of aggression caused by the illegal Russian invasion. I also thank the Deputies who have brought this Bill to the floor of the House and who have given us the opportunity to have this very important debate. Many progressive Deputies down through the years, including some of whom have been in my own party, have produced similar Bills to enshrine our neutrality into the Constitution.

On these occasions, those politicians have been castigated. They have been lectured by successive governments, which say our State's position as a militarily neutral country is safe and we do not need constitutional protection. Unfortunately, in recent weeks, we have seen some politicians in this House, in particular in the Upper House, opportunistically trying to push for Ireland to join military alliances, such as NATO or an EU army. These same few politicians were joined by a chorus of voices in the opinion pages of our newspapers and across the airwaves expounding the values of militarisation, safe, as always, in the knowledge that it will not be their kids who are called up to be conscripted into any army. It will be the sons and the daughters of ordinary, working people who will have to suffer that.

I have a picture on my phone of my grandfather in his British Army uniform. In my own family, we have had men who were forced to join armies and fight in wars. At the age of 14, my father's father joined the British Army. He was 14 years of age. He did not want to go to war. He just wanted money. He wanted a job. He wanted work. He was forced into the army. My father, my grandfather and my great-grandfather died too young.

I am sure there will be plenty of faux outrage when I say, though we all know it, it is mainly middle-aged, middle-class men who are banging the drum of militarisation and of abandoning our neutrality. These people seem to think war is easy and somehow it is better or simpler than peace. This is not the case and it never, ever has been. We should never give up the pursuit of peace. We should be proud of our peacekeeping and of our reputation abroad, as has been mentioned previously. We should never abandon that position. In fact, we should cement it.

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