Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

There are many matters I would like to discuss regarding the programme for Government, ranging from housing to climate change but in the time available I am going to zone in on just one discrete item that has huge implications for future generations, which is the undermining of our neutrality, spelt out in black and white. Before I come to that, it is significant that words like "progress", "encourage", "work towards", "support" are used in respect of really important policies and when it comes to the triple lock, set out on page 144, the Government states it "will reform the triple lock". That is a full commitment without any problem. I have the more serious concerns. I am going to use my time today and as often as I can to highlight this issue for the people of Ireland who have repeatedly told us that they hold the policy of neutrality very near to their hearts.

A carefully choreographed propaganda campaign has been afoot for a number of years that has adopted a multipronged approach, including well-placed articles in the newspapers and the holding of a process that is misnamed as a consultant process. Notwithstanding that, the people of Ireland told us they did not want to get rid of our neutrality. Along with that we have the tried and tested tools of propaganda: the shaming about how we should not be freeloading on other countries; the patriarchal approach that Government parties all know best; the use of fearmongering to tell us that we live in a very unsafe world; and the narrowing of the discussion to say "there is no alternative" to this consensus that has been manufactured by the Government. There is then the reduction of it to a simple question encapsulated by Professor Ben Tonra in a recent article in The Irish Times, who told us that the question that will be put is: "Are you with us or are you not?" Where did we hear that type of language before? "Are you with us or agin us?" as it was said.

I will use every single minute that I have in this Dáil to convey to the Government that the people on the ground have a completely different version of what the Government is telling us and that we hold a very active policy of neutrality as a cornerstone of our republic to be a voice for peace in the world, moreso now than ever. I will have no truck with a Government that is meeting in secret in relation to the arms industry and forcing us down a road where we spend less and less on public services and health, and ever more on an arms industry led by that complex. We have a Taoiseach who is going to the US to meet with the President of the United States who met with somebody for whom a warrant for his arrest has been issued and who is committing genocide in Gaza as we speak. We have had no clear answer from the Taoiseach as to what he is going to do when he meets that president. We talk about the international rules order-----

See this speech in context