Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the debate on the consultative forum report. It is just a pity that the same opportunity to debate was not afforded either to the people of this country or Opposition parties during this supposedly consultative forum. We should not forget that the Tánaiste initially said he wanted to hold a citizens' assembly on neutrality, as has successfully been done on a wide range of other issues, in particular, the first citizens' assembly, which was part of the road to the repeal of the hated eighth amendment. However, it is precisely that kind of popular, democratic and radical outcome that this consultative forum was designed to avoid. The Government was terrified that if it put neutrality to a citizens' assembly, it would get the wrong answer, one in which people would say they support neutrality and it should be in the Constitution, as proposed by People Before Profit in a Private Members' Bill last year.

What this sham forum was designed to do was to manufacture an apparent consensus towards further undermining Irish neutrality by moving us closer to NATO. The President himself called it out, warning that this Government is "playing with fire" in a dangerous "drift" towards NATO. He was absolutely correct. Overseeing this show was a dame of the British empire, Louise Richardson, aided and abetted by a cabal of so-called security experts, a large number of whom are also paid mouthpieces for imperialist Western governments and NATO. Unsurprisingly, the Government got what it paid for, and the policy report that purports to summarise the forum's proceedings is in line with that, without of course giving any fair or reasonable summary of the huge opposition to the sham forum. It claims, quite incredibly, that "little opposition was expressed" towards Ireland's involvement in "defence-related areas through such activities as the CSDP and PESCO in the EU" and even the Partnership for Peace with NATO. This is despite the fact that every one of the forum's sessions was repeatedly, and quite rightly, disrupted by protestors expressing opposition to Ireland's involvement with EU military operations and NATO.

During her opening address, the dame claimed that disruption of speeches would not be allowed. However, the mouthpieces for NATO, including the Tánaiste, were disrupted. Protestors exposed the fact that this forum had and has no democratic legitimacy or public support. Every opinion poll for decades has shown that the Irish people fully support neutrality. An Garda Síochána was then called in to forcibly remove protestors in violation of their democratic rights, so that the propaganda exercise could continue. This exercise is about laying the groundwork for working-class men and women to be sent off to fight in imperialist wars, to lose their lives so that the establishment parties and the Irish ruling class can suck up to US imperialism. Neutrality is an impediment to that and so they want to get rid of what is left.

The dame's report cannot, of course, directly attack neutrality, accepting that there is "no public appetite" for doing so. Instead, it seeks to undermine it by supporting an increase in military spending, undermining the triple lock and attempting to discredit our democratic proposal to hold a referendum. It admits at the start that submissions are not from a representative sample but then, on the basis of those same submissions, it claims there is clear public support to significantly increase expenditure on the Defence Forces and calls for the triple lock to be reconsidered. About the only useful aspect of the report is the admission that providing landing space or other facilities to a belligerent, as Ireland has done in Shannon, contradicts most definitions of neutrality. The question then for the Government is whether it will close Shannon Airport to the US military to bring the State more into conformity with some of the requirements of neutrality.

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