Mairead Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

-----war is for other people.

We know this Government is united in its support for PESCO. The reality is that a lot of people are not that familiar with PESCO but according to the European Defence Agency it is a tool to provide Europe with a "coherent full spectrum force package, in complementarity with NATO". The recent Commission on the Defence Forces mentions: "Opportunities offered by the EU’s Permanent Structured Cooperation to develop Ireland’s defence capabilities". It goes on to state that "it is necessary for the Defence Forces to be trained and equipped to NATO standards" and laments the fact that our "current battalions do not align to NATO standards". We have seen the accounts in the media detailing how NATO was in Cork in recent weeks supervising a military exercise. If you look at the review it is astonishing that it references NATO 48 times. It goes on to list three separate options for the future funding of our Defence Forces. The first, which is considered the benign option, would cost more than €1 billion per year. Option 2 is said to allow us to serve in a higher intensity conflict areas and to deal with greater crisis management overseas and that would cost around €1.5 billion per year. Option 3 is the big one, which proposes to develop a full spectrum of military capabilities, which would cost around €3 billion per year. I look at things from a monetary point of view and €3 billion per year is a colossal sum of money. To put that figure into context it is around 75% of the annual budget for the Government’s Housing for All strategy.

I know some of the speakers today are saying differently but the majority of people are in favour of our neutrality. They are proud of our neutrality and they want the Government to continue in that position. We continuously hear people say they support neutrality and that they are proud of our status as a neutral country. They also say that it gives us an influence on the international stage and does good. I am proud of our neutrality and I hope we stick with it.

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