Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I, too, compliment, ar an gcéad dul síos, an Teachta Connolly agus a grúpa for putting the motion forward. I know how passionately she feels about this topic, on which I listened to her speak many times here.

I put it to an tAire Stáit that this motion is very important. Since the outbreak of the Ukraine war, we have diminished, damaged and almost destroyed our neutrality and our record. We have had this debate previously and the Minister of State got annoyed with me. The Tánaiste has said our neutrality is an outdated concept. Imagine; as if he had not done enough damage to this country, he now wants to damage our neutrality.

I salute the peacekeepers who have gone out. I think of those who were in Jadotville and the battle there and what Deputy Micheál Martin promised them before he was in power. Now he will not even meet with them. These are the men who are the survivors and they cannot get the recognition. I see now they are getting recognition from Australia and the Australian Parliament.

Our neutrality is so important to us here. Our Irish passport is important to us here. Everything Irish is so important to us and we are entitled to have that. We can punch above our weight if we have the clean image of being neutral and not send out bombs and not have a Ukrainian flag flying out here beside the Tricolour, which I believe is scandalous and undermines our neutrality. It is time we copped on to ourselves now. I was leaving the Houses at dusk and saw the military police - as they do - taking down the Tricolour flag and the Ukrainian flag. The Ukrainian flag goes up and down every day as if it were as important as our own Tricolour. We need to cop ourselves on here. We need the Tánaiste to go out and tell Ursula von der Leyen that she cannot make those comments she made. The EU now just wants to warmonger and Ireland is tagging along to be nice guys. I heard the Taoiseach speaking in the Chamber yesterday when he told an Teachta McDonald how she has to learn about what happens in diplomacy when dealing 27 member states. We, however, stand for ourselves. We stand for Ireland and its proud people. We are proud of our soldiers, those who went out and are now going out and down into bunkers. I hope they come back safe. Some are from my own village in Tipperary. We have a proud record of service as a neutral country.

The Tánaiste has the idea that our neutrality is outdated. He had a roadshow going around and he got his answer. He went to four venues to try to get the people ready, like a citizens' assembly event. He tried to ready up the people for a change here, like he is the man who will completely change everything. Stand by our neutrality. It has done us well.

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