Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This is a most important debate, on which I am glad to have the opportunity to make a contribution. I should say that many times over the years I have expressed that we should be open about the desire to defend ourselves and each other as full members of the EU. We talk about our traditional position on neutrality. We never had a traditional position on neutrality. We did not have a position on neutrality until 1939. As it happens, former Taoiseach de Valera took the right decision at the time, because we could not trust the other guys to keep their agreement, as we now know. The fact of the matter is that Irish soldiers fought on every battlefield, for the guts of 200 years, all over Europe. They fought in the battles of Landen and Fontenoy and on every battlefield. If that was not enough, we went to the US and became involved on both sides. I do not know how we could claim to be neutral, because we were certainly eager to have a scrap.

We need to be able to defend ourselves to some extent. We are not going to have a big army that can see off aggressors like the Russians. However, there is no harm in having in a defence mechanism that has to be reckoned with, so that when the crunch comes for colleagues across Europe, at least we know how to act and we have the necessary equipment and training, and the ability to get involved and, more importantly, to give a good account of ourselves. Reference has already been made to the long shorelines that we have in this country. It is the fact that we have a long shoreline. We must patrol our shores. That will become more important as time goes on. It is all very fine to say that we are neutral and nobody can attack us. That is not true. We know what happened to neutral countries in the Second World War. Suddenly, it was all over and done with for them. Our friends in Finland had their own experience of having an aggressor next door. Finland had no option but to take them on. Indeed, Finland gave a good account of itself. The moral of the story has to be that we must be prepared to join with others of like minds to defend ourselves and, if necessary, to defend them. I will cite the example of the western Balkans.

It had quite a good reputation but the UN failed to defend the safe havens there. The reason it failed to defend them was that it did not have the firepower to do so. There is no sense in trying to explain it away or in saying if it had the firepower it would have managed to succeed. It did not have the firepower and Milošević knew it did not have it, just the same as the Russian President knows that nobody could attack them or intervene because of his strength and what he has done. We need to be alert to what is going on around us and we need to remember that the world is changing.

Whatever happens from here on in, we should have a growing ability to interoperate with our colleagues. We have to be speaking in similar tones, although not necessarily in the same language, to our European colleagues, so that they know what we are doing and we know what they are doing. There is no other way to do it. We should do this during peacetime and we cannot say we will do it during peacetime now because there is a war on in Europe. Several Members will make the opposite point but the fact of the matter is that there is nothing glorious at all about dying when you cannot defend yourself. People might say they made the ultimate sacrifice but it means nothing and it is a useless exercise. We need to become part of this, albeit on a limited level and maybe in the future we will develop more strong ties with our European colleagues. The fact of the matter is we are dealing with aggressors who will seek out any weakness at all in the defence mechanism in Europe. They will seek it out at every opportunity, they will try to see the weakness and they will exercise their maximum strength to undermine those weaknesses. I am totally supportive of the Bill that proposes to upgrade our Defence Forces. We should be proud of them and when we are proud of our Defence Forces we need to be able to stand behind them and ensure they are properly funded and have sufficient resources to do the job they will be asked to do. We must ensure they do not feel they have to go into any situation in a vulnerable position. It is as simple as that.

On the other hand, I will go back to the point on neutrality. I cannot get over the fact that we claim to be traditionally neutral; we were never neutral for God's sake. We can look at any example. There was the Irish Brigade in France, the Irish Brigade in Spain and the Irish Brigade in the United States. I know there are those who will say those were mercenaries but they were soldiers who went to war. They were funded and trained and they showed that when they were trained they were able to give a good account of themselves.

Some people see any movement towards defence and security as one of aggression but there is a big difference. We should not forget that when the Russian ships were off the south-west coast they were not there for their own good or for holidays. They were testing the ground and the water and they will be back again; there is no doubt about that at all. If they should come back I hope we will be sufficiently capable of ensuring that, while we may not be able to repel them, at least we can delay them. There is nothing to be gained by saying we cannot do it. We can do it, we did it many times in the past and we will do it again but we can only do it if we have sufficient pride in and resources and support for our Defence Forces, which I hope are coming in the course of these Bills.

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