Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Few anticipated that the largest refugee movements in Europe since the Second World War would take place in a matter of weeks in the springtime of 2022.

Ireland's foreign policy has always been grounded in the principles of international law, human rights, equality, respect, dialogue and engagement. Article 29 of our Constitution sets out the principles that guide Ireland's conduct of its international relations: the ideals of peace and friendly co-operation among nations, founded on international justice and morality; adherence to the principle of the pacific settlement of international disputes by international arbitration or judicial determination; and the principles of international law as our rule of conduct in our relations with other states. Our foreign policy is deeply anchored in these ideals. We have, correctly, sought to position ourselves as a voice for good in the world, a champion of international humanitarian law, peacekeeping and peacebuilding, disarmament and non-proliferation and a strong advocate and defender of a rules-based international order. We have prioritised sustainable development, the eradication of poverty and hunger, the empowerment of women and girls and the promotion of inclusive economic growth.

As a country, we should be proud of our record. These values will remain at the core of Irish foreign policy. The Irish people would expect nothing less from this Government or from any future Government. However, this record, this commitment, does not inure us from reality. Our starting point in addressing our security must be the world as it is, not the world as we wish it to be.

Earlier this year, I saw a clip of a television interview with two Members of the Houses of the Oireachtas about Ireland's foreign and security policy. The interviewer started the interview by asking whether Ireland should tap into the potential of our neutrality as a peacemaker or whether we were a staunch US ally that would not question US foreign policy. With all due respect to the interviewer, this is fundamentally not the question we need to ask ourselves about our foreign and security policy. The choice is not between being a vocal and convinced supporter of the UN Charter and the global multilateral system or unquestioningly taking on the mantle of another country's foreign and security policy. The choice is not one in which military neutrality is a talisman that allows us to do good in the world whereas any other security policy choice would mean abandoning our commitment to the peaceful settlement of disputes and international humanitarian law and human rights. Our belief in a rules-based international order goes to the core of who we are as a people, but it is not a magic charm. It does not protect us from malign actors, from those who treat the UN Charter with disdain and who actively try to undermine the existing multilateral system rather than uphold and improve it.

In May 2021, in the middle of the Covid pandemic, a cyberattack using Conti ransomware was carried out against the Health Service Executive by a Russian-based criminal gang. The attack brought home to many of us the real-world devastation that the malicious use of technology can bring. Hundreds of thousands of patients were impacted. The work of hospitals and medical professionals was disrupted across the country. This is just one example of some of the security challenges and vulnerabilities facing Ireland.

We have long viewed our relative geographic isolation on the periphery of Europe as a source of security. For much of the State's history, that made sense. The perceived threat of conventional attack was low. The Ireland of 2023 is different. We are a highly globalised country. We can no longer rely either on our geographic isolation for our security nor believe that we can isolate ourselves from world events. Despite being a small country, we are a highly significant digital hub internationally. We are home to nine of the top ten global ICT companies. We have one of the highest concentrations of IP addresses per head of population anywhere in the world. We are reliant on digital architecture and networks for our economic well-being and our prosperity and, as the ransomware attack on the HSE demonstrated, for delivering vital services to our population. The Government has worked hard to increase the capacity of the State to defend ourselves from these risks, with significant additional resources and capabilities allocated to the National Cyber Security Centre, NCSC, since 2021. However, no one country acting alone can respond effectively to cyber threats that can emanate from anywhere in the world, threats whose sophistication and complexity grow by the day.

We are also an island nation, and this brings its own specific risks and threats. Since the attacks on the Nord Stream energy pipelines in the Baltic Sea in September 2022, we cannot ignore the particular vulnerabilities posed to energy and communications infrastructure across Europe, most especially in the waters of the North Atlantic close to our shores. Indeed, some estimates suggest that undersea fibre optic cables now channel 97% of the world's global communications and Internet traffic, as well as $10 trillion in financial transactions every day. Many of these cables run close to the coast of Ireland, either through our territorial waters or our wider exclusive economic zone, EEZ. Ireland's geography ensures that we have been a fulcrum of such transatlantic infrastructure since the laying of the first telecommunications cable from Valentia Island in 1866. Simply put, disruption to these cables or the network of undersea energy infrastructure and pipelines could have devastating consequences, not only for Ireland, but also for our partners.

Our geography also makes it essential that we work in partnership with others. It is absolutely the case that part of the solution to managing these threats and risks more effectively is increased investment in the military and civilian capabilities needed to address them. The Government has already committed to increasing investment in the Defence Forces to €1.5 billion - in 2022 prices - by 2028. No one doubts that this is necessary and urgent. Taking the maritime domain alone, Ireland's EEZ covers hundreds of thousands of square kilometres, so when I hear that the answer to addressing our vulnerabilities is to build our autonomous capabilities, without any mention of our current partnerships and the future potential that they hold, it is difficult to take that as a serious proposition.

I have said previously that our policy of military neutrality can and must be an important part of the discussion at the forum but equally, that these questions must not be reduced to a simplistic binary choice. Staying as we are today or immediately seeking to join a military alliance such as NATO are not the only options. There is a more nuanced, informed and layered discussion to be had, unpacking and examining our long-standing policy of military neutrality while at the same time exploring the full spectrum of policy options that are available to us as a sovereign state and a committed member of the European Union. In this regard, I anticipate that the forum will provide a space to examine critically and unambiguously the choices that face Ireland, as well as our responsibilities towards our European and other like-minded international partners.

We need to examine the reality of our experience in recent years as a global actor, including our term on the United Nations Security Council in 2021 and 2022. The forum will look at our achievements on the Security Council but also at the obstacles we faced. These included multiple uses of the veto by Russia and significant challenges in ensuring that mandates for UN peacekeeping operations were agreed and fit for purpose. While Ireland has a proud and unbroken record of continual service in UN peacekeeping since 1958, no new peacekeeping missions have been approved by the UN Security Council since 2014. The increasing use of the veto is limiting the council's ability to fulfil its mandate for the maintenance of international peace and security. The forum needs to examine what this means for Ireland's ability to pursue an independent foreign policy, including the implications for the triple lock. With the experience of recent years, can we genuinely and honestly say that the triple lock remains fit for purpose?

In an EU context, we have long been an active participant in the EU's Common Security and Defence Policy, CSDP. We have undoubtedly benefited from our engagement in the CSDP, as well as contributed to it, with 16 Irish Defence Forces personnel and 21 civilian experts serving as we speak in peace-building, conflict prevention and post-conflict stabilisation efforts throughout the world. This contribution will increase significantly next month with the deployment of a naval ship to the EU's Operation Irini. The forum provides an opportunity to discuss this in more detail and to examine the reality of what it means in practice. The forum will examine how Irish military and civilian deployees in EU missions are contributing on the ground to the EU's efforts to build and sustain peace; what the EU is doing through the European Peace Facility to support Ukraine in defending its territorial integrity and sovereignty against attack; and Ireland's participation in permanent structured co-operation, PESCO, where member states come together in different project groups to develop new military and defence capabilities. I hope it will also allow us to put aside for good the fictional notion that Europe's Common Foreign and Security Policy is a stepping stone to a "European army", a concept that no country in Europe wants or is considering.

The consultative forum will provide an excellent opportunity to examine the experiences and policy choices of other European partners in responding to the new security environment. We need to learn lessons from what others are doing and consider how we can develop our existing partnerships. The forum will hear from experts and practitioners from Finland, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland in particular. We have chosen these countries as useful comparative examples quite deliberately. Norway, with which we served on the UN Security Council, is a country that is active in peace-building and conflict prevention across the world, but is also a long-standing NATO member and a country that has taken its own security seriously since its experience under German occupation during the Second World War. Sweden and Finland, two fellow EU member states with whom we share many values and interests, have now chosen to seek NATO membership following Russia's latest invasion of Ukraine.

Switzerland, whose neutrality has existed for several centuries, has a unique perspective on what this means, both legally and politically, and how this links it to wider global engagement. None of this is to say that any of these countries offers the right model for Ireland. Rather, the discussion will allow us to outline the nuances and different possibilities of international engagement, and the ways in which others have responded to the changing international security context.

Another area to explore during the forum will be our engagement with NATO’s Partnership for Peace, which we have been a member of for almost a quarter of a century. To date, this partnership has principally focused on upgrading our military capabilities and standards, thereby ensuring the effectiveness and interoperability of our Defence Forces. More recently, at its Madrid summit in 2022, NATO outlined a range of existing and new areas for partners, such as Austria, Switzerland or Ireland, to work with it on. These include maritime security, cyber and hybrid, climate and security, and resilience and critical infrastructure. With Ireland currently negotiating an updated partnership framework with NATO, the forum offers a good opportunity to explore some of these potential areas of mutual interest and relevance to this State.

A further area of discussion at the forum will be the ongoing work to develop the capabilities of our Defence Forces. We have committed to multiannual funding increases, already commencing this year, to reach a defence budget of some €1.5 billion by 2028, index-linked to inflation. This will amount to a 50% increase in defence funding since the establishment of the independent commission in 2020. Moreover, we will incrementally increase personnel numbers by some 2,000 over and above the current establishment of 9,500. As has previously been said in this House, the Government does not underestimate the challenge in achieving this objective, but we are working hard to address issues around recruitment and retention. Against the backdrop of the threats that I identified, I anticipate the forum will assess which elements of the capability framework devised by the commission could be prioritised, and the policy choices to be made. Finally, but very importantly, we will seek to have an open and honest discussion on Ireland’s security policy options for the future. We will discuss what our current policy of military neutrality means, whether it is fit for purpose in the current global security environment and whether we need to define more clearly what we do and do not mean by military neutrality. In this context, I hope that the forum will provide a space to discuss what other security policy choices may exist for our island, as well as our responsibilities towards other partners.

I will now turn briefly to the format and structure of the forum. As I said, the consultative forum will be spread across four days in three different venues. We are delighted that University College Cork will host us for the first series of sessions on 22 June and that the University of Galway will host the forum on 23 June. I extend and put on record my warm thanks to both universities for facilitating and hosting the forum. I know that as academic centres of excellence, they will provide a very appropriate space for thoughtful and reflective discussion on the issues involved. Following the sessions in Cork and Galway, the forum will move to Dublin Castle for two further days of consultation and discussion on 26 and 27 June.

While I know that some in this House have expressed a preference for a citizens’ assembly, I was conscious that two other important citizens’ assemblies are already under way this year, the first on drugs policy and the second on the future of education policy. At the same time, against a backdrop of the increasingly complex and challenging security context across Europe, it was my view that discussions on our international security policy could not be delayed. Given that all parties have their particular perspective on this, this forum is more applicable and appropriate. As we envisage it, the consultative forum will involve a broad range of stakeholders, with participation from civilian and military experts and practitioners. The Departments of Foreign Affairs and Defence are currently consulting with academic, civil society, research and State agency partners to identify a wide range of speakers and participants, from Ireland and abroad, representing a breadth of experience and views. In total, we anticipate that up to 1,000 people will attend the forum. Moreover, discussions will be livestreamed, allowing members of the public access to the discussions. A consultation exercise will also be launched online at the end of May, through the gov.ieplatform.

As Deputies will be aware, Professor Louise Richardson, the highly respected former vice chancellor of the University of Oxford, has kindly agreed to take on the role of independent chair of the forum. I am confident that Professor Richardson, who is a distinguished political scientist with a strong expertise in security policy in her own right, will play a hugely positive role in chairing the discussions. I am grateful to her for taking on this important task. Professor Richardson will also be responsible for the production of a report of the consultative forum, to be delivered to me, following its conclusion. I will consider its findings and decide in due course whether to take recommendations to the Government.

Before I finish my remarks on the forum, I will briefly touch on some inaccurate media coverage over recent weeks regarding certain national security matters. There is a well-founded and long-standing practice by successive Irish Governments not to disclose specific details of national security arrangements, whether related to land, air or sea. The public disclosure of such details would only serve to undermine efforts to protect our people and co-operate with like-minded partners. I reassure the House that the policies conducted by the Government are conducted with full respect for Irish sovereign decision-making authority. To ensure the security of its sovereignty, territorial integrity and citizens, however, every state needs the ability to maintain as confidential certain information on how it manages its security and defence arrangements. Every state needs to ensure it is a reliable and responsible security partner when it works with others, whether that is in peacekeeping missions, joint training activities or collective efforts to protect critical infrastructure and defend against cyber and hybrid attacks. Suggesting otherwise is simply not serious.

That is not to say we do not need a more consistent and informed debate on national security issues: we do. That is precisely why I decided to convene this forum. I also recognise there is a debate to be had on improving the way the Oireachtas engages and oversees our international security policy. I would welcome such a debate, but let us ensure that it is honest and informed by the experiences of other partners, which have put in place appropriate parliamentary oversight procedures.

I hope that the consultative forum will provide a useful platform for a considered and realistic discussion of Ireland’s foreign international security and defence policy when set against the contemporary challenges and threats we face. The forum represents the start of a process of consideration of these issues and not an end point in itself. Ultimately, and as I said previously, we need a serious and honest conversation about the international security policy options available to the State, and the implications of each of these. The forum will make a positive contribution to this. I encourage all Members of this House and the wider Irish public to engage with it in this spirit.

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