Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I move:

That Dáil Éireann approves Ireland's participation in two European Defence Agency projects – (1) Joint Procurement Arrangement for EU SatCom Market and (2) European Centre for Manual Neutralisation Capabilities, ECMAN, pursuant to section 2 of the Defence (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2009.

In commending the motion, I will briefly outline the function of the European Defence Agency, EDA, and the background to the programmes in which Ireland wishes to participate. I brought this motion before a meeting of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade yesterday. The EDA is an agency of the European Union and was established by a joint action of the Council of the European Union in 2004. Its purpose is to support the member states and the Council in their efforts to improve European defence capabilities in the field of crisis management and to sustain the European security and defence policy as it stands and as it develops in the future. On 6 July 2004, the Government approved Ireland's participation in the framework of the EDA. The agency is focused on assisting member states in capability development and obtaining better value for existing spending levels, improving competitiveness and securing greater efficiency, particularly in the area of research, technology and procurement of defence capabilities. The primary reason for Ireland's participation in the agency is to support the development of Defence Forces capabilities for peacekeeping and international crisis management operations. The Defence (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2009 prescribes that participation in projects or programmes in the EDA is subject to Government and Dáil approval.

The proposal put forward by me today is to seek approval for Ireland to participate in two EDA projects - one in the area of satellite communications and one in the area of manual neutralisation capabilities. The aim of this joint procurement arrangement is to provide commercially available satellite communications, fixed and mobile, as well as related services through the establishment of framework agreements on behalf of the contributing members, to promote ease of access and to improve efficiency. The provision of strategic satellite services is an essential prerequisite for the major deployment of troops overseas and in support of other major operations. It is vital that the Defence Forces maintain appropriate systems and procedures for the provision of strategic satellite services. This project represents an opportunity not only to procure satellite services in an efficient, cost-effective and timely manner but also to ensure security of supply and back-up in the event of any failure on the part of an existing supplier or an urgent operational requirement which cannot be met under Ireland's normal contractual arrangements. There are no costs to the Exchequer arising from participation in this arrangement. Costs only arise if the service is availed of on a pay-per-use basis.

I will now provide some detail on the second EDA project, which is the European Centre for Manual Neutralisation Capabilities, ECMAN. The ECMAN category B project is a follow-on activity of the EDA's category B programme on manual neutralisation techniques courses and exercises programme. Ireland's participation in that programme was approved in 2013 and will finish in 2018. The aim of this follow on project is to continue to develop manual neutralisation capabilities to the highest standards in order to retain capacity in dealing with improvised explosive devices when it is not possible to destroy or disrupt the device through other means, for example, a controlled explosion. Participation in this project would provide explosive ordnance disposal personnel with access to a training system which is designed to continuously update and improve their safety when operating in an extreme environment. It also enables those already qualified to maintain skill levels through an efficient relicensing arrangement linked to refresher courses. This capability is highly specialised. There is a lack of availability elsewhere due to its sensitive and classified nature and it is mainly developed through multinational framework arrangements. The cost to the Exchequer of Ireland's participation in ECMAN is €75,000 per year for six years - a total of €450,000 over the lifetime of the project. The costs will be met from within existing resources.

Ireland's participation in the EDA affords us the opportunity to keep abreast of best practice and new developments in the defence environment, particularly as it impacts on multinational crisis management operations. The Government's White Paper on Defence, published in August 2015, states that Ireland will identify opportunities to participate in multi-national capability development projects within the framework of the EDA in support of the Defence Forces' operations, capacity and capability. These projects are prime examples of how the Defence Forces can develop their capabilities in satellite communications and in manual neutralisation capabilities.

I commend the motion to the House.

Lisa Chambers (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

At the outset, I acknowledge the wives and partners of members of the Defence Forces who are protesting outside the House today and who will be there for the next number of hours. I will be joining them when I leave the Chamber. I wish them well and congratulate them on the fantastic work they have done to date in highlighting the difficulties their partners face serving in the Defence Forces in light of current pay and conditions.

Fianna Fáil will be supporting the motion. The EDA was established under a joint action of the Council of Ministers in July 2004 during the Irish Presidency.

Its mission, as stated on its website, is to support the member states and the Council in their effort to improve European defence capabilities in the field of crisis management and to sustain the European security and defence policy as it stands now and to develop it in the future. Ireland has participated in the framework of the EDA since it was established and it is important to note our participation in it does not impose specific obligations or commitments on Ireland, only that we make a contribution to the budget which funds the agency's day-to-day running.

Within its key mission, the EDA has three main sub-missions. They are to support the development of defence capabilities and military co-operation among the European member states; stimulating defence research in technology and strengthening the European defence industry; and acting as a military interface to EU policies. This work is done for the purposes of good and with the sole interest of protecting our people. We and the European Union are facing new and evolving threats all of the time. One prime example of this is in the area of cyber security. We need to protect our public services and ensure the business community and the many multinationals operating here operate in a safe jurisdiction and that we have protections in place to protect them from a cyber attack. Surely we can all agree and see the benefits of working with other member states to research in this area and to develop new technologies by pooling resources and technologies and allowing a small country such as ours to benefit from economies of scale by working with others. This approach is a no-brainer. We would be foolish and reckless to opt out instead of participating.

The key activities of our Defence Forces internationally are peace-keeping, co-operation with other countries in conflict prevention, strengthening national and international security and operating within a global community to promote peace and security across the globe. As a nation, we have a very proud record of operating within the UN. Since we became involved, our service has been constant; we have never had a day's break. Participation in the European Defence Agency means Ireland has access to research and information that allows us to develop and maintain our military capabilities. For the most part, due to the size of our country, this is research we cannot generate ourselves. Ireland's objectives in participating in the European Defence Agency is to achieve economies of scale in participating in defence procurement and to keep up-to-date on best practices, particularly in the area of multinational crisis management. This important work on the part of our Defence Forces is to keep up-to-date on best practice and to build the capabilities of our Defence Forces and in turn protect those serving in the Irish Defence Forces. This important work requires us to have the most up-to-date training and the best possible capabilities and that we enhance our capabilities and capacity by working with other member states. Some in the House are quite happy to laud the Defence Forces for their great humanitarian work, most recently in the Mediterranean, yet they will stand up and oppose any training of our troops to prepare them for this important work. The hypocrisy is unbelievable. I have said in the House before when our soldiers go overseas they are not going on holiday; they are operating in dangerous environments. We must at all times ensure our people have the best training and that they participate in training exercises with armies from other countries so we can share our knowledge and learn from best practice. We cannot take an insular approach to defence activities. The work our soldiers do in this sphere is peace-keeping and peace enforcement. We should always support any training activity that prepares them for such work.

I will address the two projects which are the basis of this motion. The EU Satellite Communications Market, category B project allows us to participate in a satellite service where all the member states pool resources and we access the resource only if we need it. This clearly allows for economies of scale for a country such as ours. Communications are vitally important in this day and age. We need to ensure we have a service that is consistently present and that there is no lapse in service. There is no cost unless we use it. Supporting this project and participating in it is sensible and wise.

The second project, the European Centre for Manual Neutralisation Capabilities, ECMAN, category B project, deals with providing courses and training for soldiers dealing with improvised explosive devices, IEDs. We have key expertise and experience in this area. Unfortunately we have lost experts in this area in the past number of years. We still have something to offer to other member states by participating and giving to the EDA and this project. We can also learn. The cost of this project presents value for money for our Defence Forces and our country and I am very happy to support it on behalf of the Fianna Fáil Party.

Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I also acknowledge the great work of the wives and partners of the Defence Forces members and the fact they have had to come to Dublin today to protest and highlight the demands for pay and conditions. It is a disgrace and the situation is getting worse and not better. My approach to all the EU defence related motions that have come before the House since the Lisbon Treaty referendum result, which tied Ireland to the European Defence Agency, is to view them with a healthy amount of suspicion, given the purpose of the European Defence Agency and most of our EU partners is to gradually achieve an EU army and to increase military spending. The other aim is to increase interoperability, make national armies indistinct from and dependent on each other and to enhance military capabilities above what would be required, even in an Armageddon scenario, to defend the EU. We acknowledge that Ireland has a unique reputation to protect in terms of our neutrality and proud record of peace-keeping with the UN over decades. Every step that further aligns us with the EU military project further erodes our neutrality and further undermines the reputation built on UN duties, which have resulted in the loss of 86 Irish soldiers since 1960. Nobody is denying the threat level is greater in today's world and that armies and armed groups around the world are becoming more sophisticated, as the Minister said in committee yesterday. There is a need to afford the soldiers of the Defence Forces the greatest level of protection possible and for their skills to be increasingly honed and their equipment adequate not only to protect themselves but also to protect those they seek to protect. That can be done without eroding our national interest and our neutrality. The State's neutrality should not be sacrificed on the altar of interoperability and greater efficiencies. In committee yesterday, I argued that one of the motions to which we are being asked to sign up, while being benign, could increase our dependence on the EU military machine. Signing up to the EU Satellite Communications Market, category B project ties our military, Army and Navy operating overseas to the same satellite communications system as most other EU countries despite the fact we already have a satellite communications contract which to date nobody has highlighted as flawed and as far as I know there is no problem with it.

I was told yesterday that the European Defence Agency system run via an Airbus Eurostar or other equivalent satellite is just a back-up. Interestingly the EDA satellite communications contract is with Airbus, which is one of the largest suppliers of such communications in the world. It is a French company with more than €14 billion turnover. While I was told - it was repeated today - there is no additional cost and it will only arise each time we use it, I believe the system will be used every time the Irish Defence Forces are on operational deployments overseas with troops of other countries because it ensures the buzzword of interoperability.

While we have signed up to interoperability on this, we are no closer to protecting our soldiers abroad or at home from Lariam, despite a Dáil motion instructing the Minister and military to do so. We are also way behind other EU militaries in admitting the failures of the past and the legacy of very sick serving and former members of the Air Corps. When will these issues get the same attention as the headlong rush into the EU-led military agenda?

On the second tongue-twisting motion before us today, the European Centre for Manual Neutralisation Capabilities, category B, I highlighted the dangerously low levels in the Defence Forces of skills in explosive ordnance disposal personnel. I am concerned that if they are away on training courses with this project, it would leave the country more exposed and put more pressures on the soldiers who are still at home and who are already over-stretched to cover call-outs. I was not reassured by the reply because it did not show how that section of the Army would grow quickly enough to address this shortfall. I also asked where within the very tight defence budget were they able to find the annual €75,000 it will cost? What will suffer as a consequence?

2 o’clock

I apologise that I am about to step out. I want to visit the protest outside and I will be back before the end of the debate.

Brendan Ryan (Dublin Fingal, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I wish to deal with the two elements in the motion before us, which the Labour Party will be supporting. The first element on joint procurement of satellite communications makes sense to me, providing for efficient procurement, economies of scale and all that goes with it. There is no cost to us unless we decide to purchase. I do not see any downside to that aspect of the motion.

The second element relating to training in improvised explosive devices also makes sense to me. I would certainly see providing access to training as being attractive to the personnel themselves. In any organisation, people tend to jump at an opportunity to enhance their skills level. I believe this will also be positive. This element appears to cost us €450,000. The Minister of State has indicated that will come from existing resources. However, if something comes from existing resources, a pot somewhere is reduced with less funding available for some element of the budget. I would be happier not to see a budget cut for some line element associated with this.

Earlier I met the people outside the gates of Leinster House. In his earlier contribution, Deputy Howlin identified the need for a special review of pay for Defence Forces personnel. I thought the Tánaiste's response was reasonably positive in terms of taking advice from the Minister of State at the Department of Defence. I call for it again today. It is a scandal that Defence Forces personnel are relying on family income supplement, a matter I have raised previously in defence debates.

Overall, I do not see any downside to the two elements in the motion. As I said at the beginning, the Labour Party will support it.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I am absolutely opposed to this further integration of this country into European military industrial complex. It is laughable that the Government and Fianna Fáil can try to justify this as being somehow in our interests to protect us against cyberterrorism.

Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Labour is also voting for it.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

That is even worse.

What a load of nonsense. The European Union border regime alone is like some sort of horrific nightmare from a dystopian science fiction horror movie in terms of our complicity in the horrors that are going on in Libya. We are involved in training the Libyan coast guard, which, in turn, is deeply implicated in slavery, systematic rape, beatings and torture of vulnerable people who are trapped. Up to 1 million people are trapped in Libya because the Western powers went in and destroyed Libya. Now the country has collapsed and these desperate people are looking to come to Europe for a new life. Thousands of them drown in the Mediterranean Sea with more sent back. I am absolutely amazed that the Minister of State finds this amusing, by the way. It is an horrific situation.

If there are threats out there, it is because of what Western powers, including European powers, have done in places such as Libya and the inhuman response of the European Union. Instead, we are developing systems essentially to make it easier to repel these people and co-operate with some of the forces guilty of this horror. Of course, it dates back to beyond that. There is the horrific EU-Turkey deal, again about repelling desperate Syrian migrants coming from the disaster in Syria, turning a blind eye to the horrific human rights of the Turkish regime against its own people, against journalists, locking up politicians and so on. We are quite happy to do deals with Turkey.

We are willing to engage in trade with horrific regimes such as Saudi Arabia, which is beyond words in its horror with the denial of human rights at the most basic level. After the former Taoiseach, Deputy Enda Kenny, went to the United Arab Emirates and was asked if he raised human rights issues, he said it was not really appropriate to raise human rights on trade missions. It is that kind of amorality of being willing to work with these regimes. We are doing big trade deals with the Egyptian regime. We were complicit in the US military assault on Iraq which destroyed Iraq and in turn had a knock-on effect in Syria. There would be no ISIS threat were it not for all these things.

We then justify beefing up the European military industrial complex as a response to that to protect ourselves when we have actually created that mess or been complicit in creating the mess that generated those threats in the first place. On these particular initiatives, the European arms industry has boosted its lobbying budget over the past five years from €2.6 million to €5.8 million. The 36 different meetings between the arms industry and the European Commission between 2013 and 2016 form the backdrop to this. This is the totally immoral arms industry trying to cash in on this stuff that European and other Western powers have helped generate through their direct involvement in horrors in the Middle East, Libya and Turkey or through complicity with the US war machine at Shannon here. Those are the issues we should be addressing.

Of course, we should also care about our soldiers who are standing outside the gates of Leinster House. Some of them are on family income supplement because we do not even pay them decent wages. We want to line the pockets of the European military industrial complex. We should have nothing to do with the international arms industry and the warmongering agenda that lies behind it.

Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

We will not be supporting the motion. We do not agree with the strengthening of the links between the arms industry and national governments in Europe and we certainly do not think Ireland should have anything to do with any of them. In putting money onto any of these things, we have no idea where it will end up and what it will be used for. Obviously the whole focus of fortress Europe now is on preventing refugees getting into Europe rather than preventing others from bombing their homes, making refugees of them in the first place.

I am really disappointed that Fianna Fáil and Labour are prepared to support the motion. Perhaps I should not be shocked; maybe I am too naïve for this place.

The head of the European Defence Agency, Jorge Domecq, said: "What is missing or really killing our defence effort is [that] we do it in an isolated and fragmented manner." If Ireland is going to sign up and be part of some sort of European army, whatever form it takes, God help us all. At the moment European countries are spending €200 billion on arms. This is all madness. This is driven primarily by the US where, if there was a decrease in worldwide war efforts today, huge numbers of jobs would be lost in America. Promoting the arms industry in America today is one of the prime reasons that we have such wars and destruction going on worldwide. More than 60 million people are displaced because of war. It is just nuts; it does not solve anything. People do not make bombs, fighter planes and guns to make peace; they do it to make war.

We are involved in it. The fact that we still facilitate the war effort by allowing Shannon to be used is crazy. We should not be signing up to this and I do not believe the Irish people would agree to our signing up to this. There is currently a huge effort to increase the whole security arrangement in Europe. It feeds the arms industry. We keep dropping bombs on people in order to create people who cause problems like ISIS. It is just nonsense.

Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Obviously, we understand that the SatCom project, which we are being asked to sign up to in this motion, has a variety of uses. It will involve a pay per use of the system for defence forces in the field. However, as part of that debate it would be wrong not to look at the EU satellite technology and to highlight the use of satellites and satellite data transmission as part of Europe's increasingly high-tech and militaristic defence of its borders against migrants. However, this is not benign technology. There is something deeply disturbing about the EU using its enormous power to train satellite surveillance on refugees from war-torn and impoverished states trying to cross its borders. It is chilling. It is not cheap either. The European Commission agreed in 2015 to provide €47 million to Frontex for satellite services dedicated to border surveillance. In total, more than €6 billion from the EU budget and a similar amount from national budgets is to be spent up to 2020 on border surveillance technology, including satellite surveillance. Data from all these technologies are fed into Frontex's situation room and the idea is that they would form real-time surveillance of Europe's borders to protect it against a non-existent threat from desperate people trying to get to Europe's shores. All of this is being done at the behest of the arms companies which provided this technology in the first place, the same arms companies which benefited and profited from the disruption and war in those countries which led to the people becoming refugees in the first place. While the close relationship between the arms industry and EU's governance structure is not new, we know, for example, that the defence industry was heavily involved with the European convention tasked with establishing the EU constitution and so on. All of this is set to get worse. The Government would be better off spending that money giving our soldiers decent pay and conditions, rather than wasting it on this offensive measure.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I too am very concerned about this, having listened to the Minister of State's contribution and read his speech. It is proposed that we join up to these two projects just on a whim, as it were. This motion was slipped into the business today nicely when people are very busy with everything else. What would have happened if an election had been called? Would the Government have put down this motion for Tuesday night before we did anything else?

The motion relates to the joint procurement arrangement for EU SatCom Market and European Centre for Manual Neutralisation Capabilities, ECMAN, pursuant to section 2 of the Defence ( Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2009. I am certainly not in favour of it. We have gone too far down the road of involvement with our European colleagues, who have not been much good to us in many other areas. If we were being attacked, I wonder would they come to our defence. They did not come much to our defence when we needed them in the banking crisis. Where were they? They could not be seen or found. They screwed us in the so-called bailout. They charged us 6% interest for it, while the IMF was charging us 3% interest for its funds. That shows us where our friends were.

However, this is too serious a matter. It would befit the Minister of State better if he were to go out today and meet the soldiers and their wives who are outside the gates of this House - I hope he met them - and take note of the ridiculous and shameful way our soldiers are being treated. They are being paid less then the minimum wage and expected to work 24-hour shifts, with €20 of a stipend to cover a 24-hour shift, but it would cost more than that to get a taxi to or from work. These are proud men with 40 years service. Their families, including fathers, sons, daughters, uncles and cousins, are involved in highlighting this issue. They have served in many countries with the United Nations, but not in this slimy slidderly way in which we are getting involved in these projects and putting them in danger in the name of so-called protecting our borders.

We have not had one proper debate in this House on the Syrian crisis, on the Iraq crisis or all the other crises. I tried several times to have such a debate. Deputies Noel Grealish, Kevin O'Keeffe and myself were allowed raised a Topical Issue on it, thanks to the Ceann Comhairle, on Holy Thursday evening, a very appropriate evening. No Government time was provided for it. We had no hope of securing a debate on the persecution of the Christians in the Middle East and minority Muslim sects. I was talking earlier to Deputies Wallace and Daly about their visit to Syria and perhaps we should all go and see what is going on there. I went to Lebanon. We can see what is happening.

We are respected all over the world for our neutrality but now we are being sucked into this vast industry. Some €200 million being spent on planes and all war missiles and €6 billion on protecting our borders. I do not know what will happen to our own Border between the North and the South. I got some hope today from a senior civil servant at the European committee when he said that things were looking more positive. We should mind our own business and let the people over there mind theirs. We should not be hanging on and giving them the stamp of approval that we would pony-up and send our soldiers out there. We should equip the ones at home and give them enough money to feed themselves so that they would not have to be living on family income supplement. They should be shown respect, instead of putting them into areas, and not knowing where they are going or what they are doing, or what we as a people are being sucked into without the people being consulted. This started off with the Lisbon treaty, followed by the Nice treaty, in respect of which the then Government went back to the people a second time to get it through. The Minister of State was not part of that Government, but others were.

I certainly am not going to take a lecture from Deputy Lisa Chambers with respect to her saying that she is disgusted with us not supporting this motion. She should support the soldiers at home as well. That would be more important than what she was criticising.

Lisa Chambers (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I did not look at the Deputy. I do not know what he is talking about.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Gabh mo leithscéal. I did not interrupt the Deputy. It has happened before with respect to soldiers when the Deputy opened her mouth where she should not have, and she knows where that got her.

Lisa Chambers (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

On a point of order-----

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I am in possession.

Lisa Chambers (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

-----I would like the Deputy to explain to the House exactly what he is talking about.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The Deputy knows well what I am talking about.

Lisa Chambers (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Allegations have been made against me. I would like them to be clearly set before the House so I can answer them. I never directed any comment at the Deputy. His comments need to be clarified and if he cannot clarify, he must withdraw them. It is shameful.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Can I continue?

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The Deputy should not cast aspersions on a colleague.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I am not casting any aspersions. I am just saying that things were said before about soldiers.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Please, do not-----

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I do not need any lecture from Deputy Chambers.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Please, Deputy McGrath.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I just said that the Deputy was casting aspersions on other Members who were not supporting this motion, and if she did not mention us, I am also a member of the Rural Independent Group. We are not supporting and will not be supporting this motion and neither will we be taking any lectures. I added a caveat that the Deputy got into trouble before for saying things about soldiers, when it was not exactly 100%.

We should all go out and meet the unfortunate people outside the gates of this House, proud people who are living on a whim, as it were. They are flocking away from the Army. The Government will have all these SatComs and God knows what and it will have no soldiers on the ground to do anything in Ireland. They have helped out when we have had flooding and in times of emergencies. The Government should support and respect them, rather than getting involved in business that is none of our business. It should keep out of it.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I met the partners of people in the Defence Forces outside the gates of this House today and yet again I am hearing the same story, that our defence forces are at point of real crisis under the Minister of State's watch. That extends from officer level down to private level. We are all rightly proud of our Defence Forces, the work that 790 or so of them are doing in overseas missions and the work they have done in past. The way they have represented this country has been a huge service and brought great credit to this country, but they are being let down currently by the Government in how they are being managed. The response to that should not be what we are seeing here and what we have seen with the recent Government decision, as I understand it, to join PESCO, which is for us to go all in in terms of development as a key member of a new armaments-arranged combined European army development. We bring real strength to Europe with our tradition of neutrality and peace keeping and our tradition of scepticism and outright opposition to some of the military adventurism that we have seen from European neighbours in recent years and down through the years. We will not be able to support this proposal.

If the Minister of State is responding at the end of the debate, perhaps he will be able to answer another question I would like to ask. Why are we debating this matter in advance of a debate on the Government's decision that Ireland should join PESCO? Surely the Government's decision to go in this direction is strategically broader and of more historical significance than the decision to participate in EDA projects. By contrast, the Danish Government is maintaining its position that a country can be a full member of the EU without necessarily having to buy into this very real level of security co-operation and support for defence armaments industries. The EU is very upfront and clear about what it is seeking to do. An additional €500 million will have to be provided for armaments supports in 2019 and 2020 and €1.5 billion will have to be provided each year from 2021. I presume there will be an ongoing ramping up from there on. It was a mistake not to debate the Government's strategic decision on PESCO in advance of debating these operational investments. Why is the decision not on the agenda for next week? Surely we have to do it before 11 December, when, I understand, PESCO will be signed off at the European Council. Why are we not debating that? A date has not even been set for it to be debated next week. We have to debate it in advance of 11 December. When we have that debate, and the same point is raised here, the Green Party will stand for Ireland taking a strategic decision to maintain a proud and strong EU that is proud of its tradition of bringing peace to Europe in a way that did not exist for generations prior to its establishment. We cannot develop a Europe which is at peace with itself, but at war near its borders with neighbouring countries in a way that undermines the whole peace project aspect of the EU, which I like.

Deputies have mentioned member states' recent activities in Libya, which have devastated the region, as an example of what results from investment in armaments technology. I once heard someone referring to the kinetic power of munitions and military force. We bring the power of intelligence to peacekeeping and how it works. One can have all the satellites in the world. I understand that when Irish soldiers went to Liberia, where they did an incredible job as part of an incredible mission, they shared a computer with the people of a nearby village. That, more than anything else, helped to swing the local population over to them, thereby enabling them to carry out their peace mission. I was proud to be in government when we supported the difficult mission in Chad. It was difficult to get equipment and helicopters to Chad. As I understand it, the best thing we did there revolved around our decision not to build a big fortification. We did not drive our trucks through local villages in the middle of the wet season, thereby destroying the roads used by local farmers. That marks the intelligence of the personnel we are proud to have serving in our armed forces.

We bring these skills and strengths to Europe. I do not think it is necessary to buy into the big new satellite technology that allows others to look down from space and press a button from a military drone to kill people who do not know what is coming until they have been zapped. Lord knows what their surviving relations will do against the EU for ever and a day. That is not the way Europe needs to go. I want to support our Army. I would fund our Army. It needs funding. We should invest not in armaments but in human intelligence. We should start by investing in the soldiers who are increasingly unhappy with the way the Minister of State is running the Department of Defence.