Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)

-----regarding radar, sonar, equipment and material that we need for our Defence Forces. We absolutely will be spending that money. Our neutrality is well known and well noted but during our Presidency, we will be the independent arbitrator in the Presidency chair for the needs and necessities of all the member states. Defence still remains a member state competency. It is absolutely a member state competency. There are no instructions from the European Union as to what we do. We saw the SAFE mechanism recently, which Ireland certainly facilitated. Ireland did not stop or object to it but Ireland is not taking part in all aspects of it because that is our own sovereign decision. Other countries make their sovereign decisions about these things as well. We, and all member states, value very strongly that our defence policy is our own policy.

Some member states want to have more co-operation, whether that is through NATO, which they have chosen to be a member of, whereas we have not, or through the European Union in terms of getting efficiencies and working together to get value for money. What is happening in many eastern European countries is that choices are being made, choices supported by entire parliaments, to spend more on defence and maybe less on social spending. These are really difficult choices but, quite frankly, countries like Finland, Lithuania and Poland feel backed into a corner that they have to do this because of that serious threat from Russia.

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