Michael McNamara (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I wish to speak on behalf of the motion and against the Government's amendment. I listened very carefully to what the Tánaiste had to say before he quickly departed the Chamber. It seems to me that he has offered no reason whatsoever as to why the Government is not prepared to even accept Ireland's traditional position of neutrality and encapsulate that in the countermotion, as Deputy Connolly pointed out. It is almost as if we are embarrassed by Ireland's history of neutrality.

There is a war in Ukraine. I call it a war; only the Irish Government and the Russian government seem to say it is not a war. The Russian government calls it a special military operation and the Irish Government has its own reasons because we are now training people who are belligerents in what the Russians regard as a war. We seem to be saying it is not a war and we are training people to defend themselves. Rightly or wrongly, we are training belligerents in a war. I think we should discuss the rights and the wrongs of that in this Chamber.

The Tánaiste accuses us of wanting to shut down a pre-emptive debate, but we are not. We want to hand that debate over to the Irish people by way of a referendum because this Dáil does not allow for debate.

The original motion referred to a Horgan v. An Taoiseach. We must accept that the President of the High Court, who delivered judgment in that case, held against the plaintiff, Dr. Horgan, and found that the use of Shannon Airport and use of Ireland generally did not conflict with our constitutional provisions. I would respectfully say it is a huge step from that to where we are now which is arming belligerents with non-lethal weapons and training them in the use of lethal weapons.

Horgan looked at many US cases where he talked about the rivalry and the challenges between the Executive and the Legislature when it came to the declaration of war. Let us be honest, this Legislature, as it has evolved since the foundation of the State, never seriously challenges the Executive and less so now than ever before. We do not have a system as exists, for all its many manifest and evident faults, in America, where the legislature can hold the executive to account particularly in such crucial matters. We do not have that here. The only people who can hold the Executive to account and can constrain the Executive - the Tánaiste is terribly afraid of its being constrained - are the people by way of an election. By then, of course, if you have declared war on somebody, it is a little bit late. That is why the people should be given a voice now to debate and to determine what constraints they want to put on the Executive.

There are lots of examples. There are constitutionally neutral states just as there are states that are neutral by accident of geography. I have heard people even say that Ireland is neutral by accident of geography. So are many other countries. Austria is arguably neutral by accident of history and geography just as Ireland is, nevertheless it is avowedly neutral, something that has served it very well. I would have thought it has actually been to its economic and financial benefit as well as its geopolitical benefit, just as it has been beneficial to Ireland up to now.

We like to forget that because it might be a little bit embarrassing for us to look back at the Second World War and the words that we used or failed to use against the Nazi regime and compare them to the bellicose words that both the Taoiseach and Tánaiste have had about Russia, about how it was barbaric and a rogue state. They could not find enough words with which to condemn Vladimir Putin. If it is wrong - and it is wrong - to bomb civilian areas and target essential civilian infrastructure in Bakhmut, Mariupol or in any of those places, it is equally wrong in Gaza, but those words are not there because we want to be part of the club. The Tánaiste is obsessed with being part of the club and people see that. That is why it is important to constrain the Executive because we might have as weak a Tánaiste again in future who is so desperate to curry favour with his partners, as we call them. The Ceann Comhairle used the word "ally" when introducing Zelenskyy which I found a very inappropriate word to use in the circumstances. We may sympathise with him, but that does not make him an ally.

People talk about the risks now and how it is unprecedented.

For all the military alliances the countries that are served by Nord Stream are in, it did not stop the pipeline being targeted. We still do not know even who targeted it.

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