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

The Government's representation of its position on neutrality and this Bill, as well as Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael's representation of their position on neutrality, is dishonest and misleading from beginning to end. The position on this Bill is dishonest. This Bill is to create a conversation and debate for the entire country about the position on neutrality. We need to do that when there is a greater threat of war globally than there has been for many decades, between powers that have nuclear weapons. The Bill proposes to maintain a policy of non-membership of military alliances and not allowing our territory to be used to prosecute war or to transport personnel or war material for the purposes of war. It prevents us from adopting a decision by the European Council to participate in a war. We can only participate in a war, with the assent of Dáil Éireann, if we are attacked ourselves. That is what the Bill proposes.

I believe it is in line with the wishes of the vast majority of people. It is certainly in line with the traditions of James Connolly, who helped to found this State, and of Wolfe Tone. It is in line with the tradition that established this State, in opposition to the slaughter of the First World War and the colonial domination of the British Empire. That is what it proposes to do. In answer to Deputy Berry's question, we do not believe in any way that it inhibits our proud tradition of peacekeeping or humanitarian assistance for the oppressed or people suffering around the world. Any concerns about that could be addressed by changing wording on Committee Stage. We are open to amendments on the wording, but the key principles of this are copper-fastening our military neutrality and not being involved in military alliances.

The dishonesty of this Government is that while it has to pay lip-service to neutrality, in reality it has eroded, breached and undermined our military neutrality as have successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments . They are now seeking to use the terrible crisis and Putin's bloody invasion of Ukraine to do something they have long tried to do, which is to move closer to EU militarisation and to the NATO military alliance. That is the truth. By doing that, they are betraying that proud tradition of opposition to imperialism.

Putin's war in Ukraine is disgusting, imperialist and bloody. He should get out of Ukraine. We have been consistent in opposing Russia's imperialist adventures in a way that our Government and the European Union have not. We opposed Russia's involvement in Afghanistan and in Chechnya, with the bloody levelling of Grozny. Only a few months ago, we opposed the Collective Security Treaty Organization, CSTO, which is Russia's version of NATO, intervening against workers in Kazakhstan. We opposed Russia in Georgia, Syria and everywhere it has gone, because Putin is an imperialist and a warmonger, and Russia has a long history of imperialism. We are consistent, as was James Connolly, with the tradition of neutrality, in opposing all warmongers and imperialists. The Government is silent on that.

If CSTO and Russia are imperialists, so are the powers that dominate NATO, which the Government is silent about. In the NATO war on Afghanistan, tens of thousands of people were slaughtered and blown up with drone missiles at weddings, in buses and so on by NATO forces. The US and UK led a war in Iraq, which directly killed 500,000 people, as Deputy Gino Kenny just said. It indirectly resulted in the deaths of more than 1 million people. It completely destroyed the infrastructure of Iraq and destabilised the entire Middle East. The disaster that we have seen in Syria would not have happened if not for the US and UK-led war in Iraq.

Recently, Amnesty International and UN Human Rights Watch confirmed something that Palestinians have been saying for decades, that we have said to the Government and European Union for years, that Israel is an apartheid state involved in ethnic cleansing and committing crimes against humanity. No sanctions were imposed on it by the European Union or NATO. It is quite the contrary. The powers that dominate NATO arm Israel to the teeth, even though it is guilty of committing war crimes on an ongoing basis, for 70 years, against the Palestinian people.

The war in Yemen is conducted by Saudi Arabia. The Tánaiste, Deputy Varadkar, sends people from Ireland every year to develop trade relations with the most despotic dictatorship in the world, in Saudi Arabia, that has been at war for seven years in Yemen, killing 377,000 people, including 10,000 children, and has brought 14 million people to the brink of starvation according to the UN. It is armed by the US, the UK and France. They are directly involved in that war.

12 o’clock

Are there any sanctions against them? None. Why? Because it is in US interests to support the Saudi dictatorship as part of its project of controlling and dominating that area for the purposes of oil. I could go down through the list. The Government is silent on those things. That is what neutrality means. It means not being silent. It is not about being indifferent; it means being consistent in opposing oppression, imperialism and war-mongering rather than being selective in the way the Government is. The Government is against some wars but for other wars if its allies are involved in them and arming people to conduct those wars. This is now more vital than ever, as two nuclear powers engage in a stand-off. Why would we be involved in any alliance with powers that have nuclear weapons that could destroy the world? Now more than ever, we need to protect neutrality and have a constitutional referendum in order to secure that neutrality.

See this speech in context