Micheál Martin (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)

----are subject to potential threats in terms of national security. We have been very consistent at European Union level in terms of our position on the right of Palestinians to their own state. We have called out the war crimes and the blatant, flagrant abuses of international law by Israel in Gaza and indeed increasingly now in the West Bank, which is a cause of great concern. We will not be spending money on fighter jets for a long time, for quite some time. Our immediate focus is on radar. We have purchased C295s. There will be a further strategic lift airplane purchased very shortly. We are building up our investment but we are coming from an incredibly low base as a country. The Deputy's language was around the militarisation of Ireland but we are a long way off that. We need to have a sense of perspective and balance in this debate. We do need to invest in our Army and Naval Service. Maybe the Deputy's party does not believe in armies or navies and that is a legitimate position to have. Perhaps that is the Deputy's position. I believe we need an Army, a Naval Service and an Air Corps and we need to invest. They need the best of equipment because they go on peacekeeping missions and they share that equipment with other countries like Poland at the moment in Lebanon, and with Hungary, so they need to have interoperability in weaponry.

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