Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I extend my thanks to the Social Democrats, and to Deputy Gibney in particular, for bringing this motion forward. In Ireland we have a unique position. As a small European nation with a large global footprint, it is both our neutrality and our commitment to development aid which have given us a distinctive voice on the world stage. While many states, including our European partners, are reducing their development aid and while some have renounced their neutrality, we have remained committed to our development aid, which is a good thing, but we are on the verge of damaging our neutrality with what would be the removal of the triple lock. With our voice, we have been consistent in pushing for and facilitating peace around the world, and rightly there are huge concerns in the country that Government moves to abandon the triple lock may erode that distinctive, powerful and important global voice.

Indeed, the arguments that many of us in the Opposition have made against abandoning the triple lock were also made by the now Taoiseach in 2013. He said then that the triple lock was at the core of our neutrality. He rejected assertions that, through the triple lock mechanism, we were giving unsavoury countries a veto over our actions, saying that this argument was Fine Gael attempting to erode our neutrality. Today, when members of the Opposition make that point, the Taoiseach tells us that the triple lock has absolutely nothing to do with military neutrality. If this Government is one thing - and Fianna Fáil in particular - it is consistently inconsistent on this issue. This motion calls for a plebiscite that presents a balanced and informed choice, reflecting the role of the triple-lock mechanism in Ireland's approach to international deployments to date, the considerations of its impact on peacekeeping operations in the future, and any scope for the removal of the triple-lock mechanism to result in potential non-neutral military deployment. These are all incredibly important issues to the Irish public, even if the Government has decided to pretend they are not.

We in the Labour Party are staunchly against the removal of the UN approval for Irish peacekeeping missions. We support a referendum to protect our military neutrality, as outlined in our manifesto. The Taoiseach must have read our manifesto cover to cover, based on the number of times he brings it up on the floor of the Dáil, albeit never of course in any good faith. I believe that in these times of uncertainty, when the international order has shifted in ways that truly are unprecedented, it is important to remember our proud history and current role in the area of neutrality, and just how dearly the Irish people hold onto that. For so many people, our neutrality makes up a part of our Irishness. This is an island that has seen horrific violence. As a country and as a society, we hold our neutrality, now more than ever, as a foundational pillar of who we are on the world stage. In talking about moving away from the triple lock, we have heard from a number of Government members, whether frontbenchers or backbenchers, that we should trust the Government and the Dáil when it comes to when and where we deploy our people. I have to say that the word "trust" is not the first one that springs to mind when thinking of how this current Government behaves. Trust is earned, whether through follow-through on agreements, timely relaying of information requested, or even things as simple not ramming decisions through unilaterally. What I can say for certain is that the Government does not have my trust, and it does not have our trust. I do not want to speak for the rest of the Opposition, but I would put good money that it does not have their trust either.

What we can work on together is our shared view that we need to be investing more in our own security, to protect our neutrality and to keep us safe. I raised this issue last week, and it is important to reiterate that we have not taken our security seriously enough.

That starts with the pay and conditions of our Defence Forces and goes all the way up to the lack of investment in our detection systems, which has caused us to rely on the Royal Air Force, something which needs to end. This should be an issue that can unify this House but, unfortunately, this Government has managed to cause yet another wedge.

Of course, we have seen the EU as a whole change in recent years, particularly in the past couple of months, with a focus on increased militarism now being the key issue for a host of member states. While we cannot and will not under any circumstances accept a role in a common defence pact or any offensive actions involving Irish troops, we have a responsibility to ensure our own house is in order when it comes to security.

We also know that we do not have a firm ally in the United States. The latest scandal out of the Trump Administration shows an open distain from the Vice President and the Secretary of Defence towards Europe. The Vice President, JD Vance, claimed that actions against the Houthis amounted to “bailing Europe out again”, and the Secretary of Defence, Pete Hegseth, stated that he shared the Vice President’s loathing of European freeloading, calling it pathetic. This is as hostile as an American administration could be towards Europe and that is before we factor in the looming tariffs to come. We simply cannot look to the Americans to protect us.

There is a lot to do to get our own house in order. An aspect we absolutely need to look at is the lack of investment in our National Cyber Security Centre. It is now a reality that security of our trade networks and critical infrastructure is under constant threat from cyberattacks, data breaches and disinformation campaigns. The hack of the HSE from Russia was not a one-off. It was a warning that our global supply chains and our State services could be disrupted and manipulated at any point. There are experts in the National Cyber Security Centre who, through lack of funding, constantly have to be reactive rather than proactive against these threats. This has us on the backfoot constantly. I urge the Government, as a priority, to take a look and invest in this.

The issue is more widespread, however. With regard to our Defence Forces, we are nowhere near the levels of personnel we need, which now only stands at 7,497 members. While I touched on this last week, I wish to talk about a response to a parliamentary question that is incredibly concerning and shows a fundamental disconnect in the Government’s problem in this area. There is a solution within its grasp, but the Government does not act. The parliamentary question to which I am referring references the unspent allocation of Defence Forces’ spending on pay. In 2018 to 2024, the unspent allocation of Defence Forces’ spending on pay was €197.7 million. An addendum to that parliamentary question stated that the unspent allocation over this period arose primarily from Permanent Defence Force numbers falling below the target strength. However, any unused allocation arising from this was utilised to address spending pressures elsewhere in defence. This “prudent approach” has ensured that only €36 million of the overall gross allocation over the 2018-2024 period remained unspent. That is €36 million that could have been invested in the pay and conditions of our standing Defence Forces. If we have a huge retention issue due to, among other things, poor pay, and the Government is willing to spend another €197.7 million specifically on the pay for Defences Forces, never mind that it was later used for other things, did it not at any point cross the Government’s mind that this could be used to invest in the actual pay and conditions to ensure we did not have the said retention problem?

We in the Labour Party feel there is an urgent need to ensure that the barracks and associated facilitates are upgraded and maintained. There is also a real opportunity to develop new housing on Defence Forces’ land for service members and their families.

The pension issue facing so many members of our uniformed services in regard to the public sector single pension scheme needs to be amended to recognise the particular position of workers in these fast accrual professions. Access to supplementary pension is needed to bridge the potential significant gap from retirement to State pension age.

The vulnerabilities surrounding our undersea cables is a critical concern we need to address. It is no secret that a Russian shadow fleet vessel was recently "loitering" - for want of a better word - in our waters just off the coast of Cork, directly over one of these cables. We do not even have the technology to properly investigate the vessel. Our detection capabilities are non-existent. While it is a costly and complex procurement process to have an effective detection system, it is clearly something we need to fast-track. That Russian vessel, after leaving our waters, hightailed it up to the Baltics where the Russian fleet is not shy to drop anchors and damage undersea cables. If Ireland were to be subject to similar actions, it would have a real and potential paralysing impact in this country. I do not say that to stoke fear; I say it to emphasise the need to invest in our naval fleet alongside detection technologies in order that we can monitor our own waters and invest in our own neutrality. While we know there is a recommended acceleration programme of Naval Service vessel replacement to ensure a balanced fleet of nine modern ships by early in the next decade, there is no confidence the Government will be able to deliver this, considering its record.

At the heart of this motion and of our neutrality is the importance of democratic consultation in shaping this country’s defence policy, something this Government and the previous Government, of which the Minister of State was a part, have been utterly devoid of. I utterly reject shooing away Opposition concerns that Government Ministers had themselves when sitting on the Opposition benches. It raises issues of values and trust. We cannot simply abandon what we say and what we believe just because we sit in a different side of the House. The muddying of the waters the Government has done when it comes to our neutrality actually impedes the broader and more serious conversation we need to have about our own security.

As I have outlined, we in the Labour Party are serious about improving our security. At the heart of this issue and our neutrality is the need to improve pay and conditions for our members of the Defence Forces, as well as our need to hold our neutrality dear. Only from those foundations can we achieve any of our further goals. While the Department of Defence knows and acknowledges that recruitment and retention are a huge issue, as of yet, we have not seen a clear pathway to improvement. We need to be able to stand on our own two feet in regard to our security. The best thing we can do for the EU as a whole is to ensure we look after our own house in the first instance. Our neutrality, like our commitment to development aid, must always remain a key pillar of Irish foreign policy. I call on the Government to fully support this motion and to come in lockstep with the Opposition which, on this issue, is on the right side.

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