Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

The defence and security challenges facing Ireland have never been more diverse and Ireland has perhaps never been so ill-equipped to handle them. Current geopolitical tensions across the world are being fuelled and intensified in the first instance by Russia's grotesque invasion of Ukraine. Before that was the rise of populism. The threats posed by accelerated climate change, energy and food insecurity, current and likely future pandemics and bad governance have increased instability around the world. Such security threats not only directly challenge a state's ability to maintain and improve living standards for its people, but also become threat multipliers by interacting and converging with other existing risks and pressures, thus increasing the risk of violent conflict, terrorism, human trafficking, refugee crises, poverty and the threat of drug cartels, to name but a few.

Adding to these challenges are hybrid threats, a combination of low-risk activities, including the use of third parties to conduct cyberattacks, data breaches and information disruption that, when combined with geopolitical influence, can have devastating effects on a country's economy and security. These hybrid challenges generally take place in a space regarded as the grey zone where the end goal is strategic disruption rather than all-out war. This ambiguous space is of extreme concern to the State's defence and security. Rather than all-out war, a state can find itself in the dark after a cyberattack on its electricity grid or a disruption of its energy supply reserves. Let us consider what happened when the HSE infrastructure was brought to a standstill over the course of days.

In addition, countries must also potentially deal with many of the traditional security concerns centred around belligerent actors, including states with all the security repercussions that direct armed conflict entails. Since the foundation of the modern Irish State in 1922, the Defence Forces augmented by civilian support staff have put themselves between the people of Ireland and danger to defend and secure Ireland's political, economic and social freedoms. Overseas, they put themselves in harm's way in the name of peace. It is an incredibly proud tradition we have, and one that must be maintained. Their sacrifices have allowed democracies to flourish and economic growth to take root.

Since joining the UN in 1955, Ireland's diplomats, humanitarian workers, police and military personnel have brought stability and peace to unstable areas of the world and have been among the world leaders in maintaining peace in some of the most insecure regions around the globe. However, the recent geopolitical tensions, Covid-19, the effects of climate change and the HSE cyberattack of 2021 all have highlighted Ireland's vulnerabilities and inability to monitor and forecast threats, while the report of the Commission on the Defence Forces called attention to the deficiencies in those forces and other agencies regarding their capability to support the State in those area. A whole-of-government, and, my party would add, whole-of-local authority, approach would ensure a comprehensive holistic capability is developed which will create a clear understanding of roles and responsibilities per scenario, and pool budgets and resources.

The Departments tasked with Ireland's defence must be adequately resourced. The Defence Forces must be free from a fear of disbandment, respected across the government and respected within the workplace, must feel safe, and must be given the funding necessary to accommodate and pay its personnel, train its units and meet the challenges of the day, the future and whenever they are deployed. It is with those in mind that my party welcomes to a degree the consultation process. We feel it would be better suited to a citizens' assembly, like others. However, the conversation has started now, and that is fine. In terms of the contribution the Social Democrats would make to it should we be permitted to be involved, it would include discussion of such issues as support to the maintenance of Ireland's position of military neutrality, and potentially define what military neutrality looks like. Neutrality is never indifferent. We see active neutrality in our support for Ukraine. That is worthy and we should continue that. However, we also cannot be hypocritical. We cannot have one approach to Ukraine and a second approach to Palestine, for example. We had an opportunity this week in the Chamber to demonstrate leadership on an international stage. If we had enacted the Illegal Israeli Settlements Divestment Bill 2023, that would have had the world sit up and take note. Ireland, once again, could have been a leader in challenging apartheid regimes. It is lamentable that we have not done that. I encourage the Government, if we are thinking that way, to increase divestment. The people of Palestine cannot wait.

The contribution the Social Democrats would make also includes: to invest in the Defence Forces with the goal of bringing funding to a sustainable level that will allow it to fulfil its duties; to reconfigure the Department of Defence as the Department of Defence, Security and Emergency Planning; to appoint a separate Minister of State with responsibility for national defence, security and emergency planning within the Department of the Taoiseach; to create, within the Department, an office of national defence, security monitoring and threat assessment; develop a national defence and security framework; to create an office of national information, cyber and data defence and security to co-ordinate many of the functions of various bodies currently responsible for Ireland's data information and cybersecurity; to begin to rebuild sonar capability and infrastructure for the Naval Service so that we can see what is above our skies and below our seas; to develop the rank, pay and promotional system within the Defence Forces and ensure this system evolves within the new practices, new technologies and new skill sets; and to create a civil protection rapid-response corps that can be deployed overseas, if necessary, to assist in natural disasters as these may intensive with climate change.

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