Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

-----and what our military posture should be. However, let us not try, regardless of how the Minister says it, to move along a path by stealth, in my judgment, to a situation that the Irish people will be surprised to find themselves in one day. Let us have this debate in an open clear way, an informed debate on the future of Irish neutrality, what it means to us and how we are going to vindicate it into the future, not chip away at what most people believe to be the stance of the Irish nation in terms of its military capacity.

We were supposed to have the Minister's response to the debate on funding by the end of last month. Will we see the Government's response to the paper? Is that going to happen before the recess? That would inform this debate too. In the context of all that, let us have an open, informed and real debate and let us not have the Dáil being presented with motions such as this, with five minutes to respond to them, when these are such profound issues for the people of Ireland to address.

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