Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Connolly and the Independent Group for bringing this very timely motion for discussion. Discussing our neutrality against the backdrop of what is happening in the Middle East is very pertinent and very important. It brings that debate through our lens, which is needed. We, in the Labour Party, are on record as saying we were not happy with how the consultative forum was set up. It was nothing to do with personalities as the Tánaiste put across to Opposition Members this morning. Instead, we would rather have seen it come through a citizens' assembly, a forum which is well-suited to dealing with difficult, politically complex subjects. We have seen the citizens' assembly deliver a report on decriminalisation of the drug user and other topics. Given the depth of feeling and passion for our military neutrality in this country, a citizens' forum would have been the more appropriate place. There is an inexorable move from the Government to a weakening or a shaving of our neutrality and that pressure is coming from Europe. I have no doubt it is uncomfortable being Ireland in the context of the EU and discussing foreign policy but we should be proud of that. We should be proud of our difference and of being a squeaky wheel because we are unlike our European neighbours due to our history. We were not the colonisers; we were the colonised. We have a rich, deep and true history of peacekeeping, disarmament and non-proliferation. I acknowledge and am happy to see in the motion, the acknowledgement of our role and that of Frank Aiken leading the charge for Ireland in the UN to deliver what ultimately became the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. In a former life, I was proud to be a very junior member of a delegation to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty in 2010 to New York and I saw first hand the power of Irish diplomacy and the esteem in which Irish diplomats are held in the area of disarmament, non-proliferation and in related areas of peacekeeping.

If we come back to what we have experienced in this Chamber in the past year, set against the context of the Middle East, two of the three most recent guests we have had in this Chamber to address us have been Ursula von der Leyen and Joe Biden. As a whole, this House extended to them a very warm welcome and one of respect in order to hear what they had to say. However, from 7 October, when Israel was responding to the Hamas attacks, which we all condemn wholeheartedly as barbaric attacks, it was Ursula von de Leyen and Joe Biden who were the first two global leaders to go out to Israel and give support - wholehearted support in Ursula von der Leyen's case, and Joe Biden not so far behind - for the Israeli response. They have given the imprimatur, the go-ahead, the green light to what is happening in Gaza now which is the slaughter of the innocents and the civilians.

Irish people have traditional support and kinship with the oppressed and with people living under oppressive regimes. That is where we sit. That is the mainstream view in Ireland. It is deeply worrying that we are in a situation where people who are articulating that view are being let go from work or are having difficulties in their workplace because that is the view of the Irish people. We stand shoulder to shoulder with innocent people who are facing slaughter from a hugely disproportionately powerful military force.

My entire life, I have heard through the news and the western media that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. That in itself is contested in terms of the type of Israel is. Even if we take that and do not challenge that aspect of it, there is responsibility on those of military might and power to act in a proportionate and restrained manner in the field of military conflict. That is not happening in Gaza at the moment. I have studied international security and many conflicts and wars, and in all my time I can not remember any occasion where a UN organisation, in this case the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, UNRWA, had to cease operations because it had no fuel. I have never heard the likes of this. The level of blockage that Israel is placing on Gaza is such that the agencies of the United Nations, the international organisation that is supposed to promote and keep peace in the most difficult places, is being denied fuel to operate at a most basic level. That is the level of international law that is being broken by Israel and this is where we need to stand up in our Parliament and as a country and express that power, which I have seen first hand we are capable of doing. However, that is under threat because we are being swept along with the European and EU consensus on common foreign and security policy.

We need to look at the UN as well and operate within the UN as to how fit for purpose it is in providing peacekeeping in modern times. There are three peacekeeping missions in the Middle East at the moment, one of which dates back to 1948 in the West Bank, the Golan Heights in 1973, and Lebanon the most recent in 1978. Ireland needs to work to see how we can deliver peacekeeping in the modern age and in modern conflicts. We fully support the triple lock as a protection on our neutrality at the moment and we support it particularly now when we feel the Government is moving us in a direction that will reach beyond where the Irish people want to be regarding our neutrality. It is not about being impotent in world affairs. We do not think Ireland is, has been, or should be, impotent. There is a threat related to our cybersecurity and we have to resource that area. We have to resource our own Defence Forces to ensure we can protect our own waters and shores. That is not unrelated to the debate here and it is one for which we should be able to call in isolation from also wanting to protect our neutrality.

We are anti-war in Ireland. We are against war and suffering, no matter who starts it, contrives it, or supports it. We will call it as we see it and I am proud to be Irish and of Irish people because we do that. We do it if it is America invading Iraq with the coalition of lies, if it is Russia invading Ukraine, and we are doing it now as we are seeing the massively disproportionate illegal barbaric response of Israel on the people of Gaza. That is where Ireland is. We need to protect our military neutrality and stop training other forces including Ukrainians in small arms, which is another point we would like to make. I thank the proposers for their motion which we support.

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