Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

-----trying to do so much at the same time. I support, as the Government does, the appropriate use of state aid, but we should never forget that state aid is ultimately taxpayers' money given to businesses. Small countries like ours will never be able to compete with big countries when it comes to the amount of state aid they could give their companies. That is why we always need to be careful about that. If the state aid rules are relaxed too significantly by the European Union, the amount of state aid that France, Germany or Italy can afford to give its companies will dwarf what we can give many times over and we will find ourselves at a competitive disadvantage. We will give our companies state aid just so they can catch up, not so they can compete and grow. That is a big problem and always has to be borne in mind.

When it comes to the war in Ukraine, Deputy Barry referred to the arms industry. Let us be under no illusion that the war in Ukraine is a windfall for the arms industry, which will make a fortune out of the fact that there is a war happening in Europe. That is not just the arms industry in the west; it is the arms industry all over the world. We live in a dangerous world, and countries such as Ukraine get attacked and other countries face hybrid attacks. That is why countries have to be able to defend themselves and to buy the equipment to do so. Deputy Barry referred to an event in the UAE. I am not aware of that event. To the best of my knowledge, there was no Government involvement in it, but I could be wrong about that. There is a defence and security industry in Ireland, and it is an industry that has a role to play. It is often involved in the space industry, protective armour, robotics, artificial intelligence and things like cybersecurity. Unfortunately, we live in a dangerous world where even peaceful countries such as Ireland that do not want to spend a fortune on defence have to spend money on defence because we could be attacked, perhaps not in the way Ukraine is being attacked - I highly doubt that would ever happen - but hybrid warfare is a reality now, particularly when it comes to cybersecurity.

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