Joe Conway (Independent)

The reason I deferred to Senator Scahill, even though I think I upset the lineage, is I was unprepared and I was trying to marshal a few figures. I want to celebrate the fact that we have the opportunity to comment on expenditure and the whole ambit of what we are doing with our money and productively. I draw the House's attention not for the first time to the expenditure on our defence budget. The last time I looked, it was about 0.25% of the national budget. It seems to be the fashion of the day. Senator Cosgrove spoke about how billionaires are treated in Spain and I would like to mention how Switzerland treats its neutrality. As opposed to our 0.25% expenditure on defence procurement and the Defence Forces, Switzerland, a neutral country, spends between 7% and 8% of its national budget on defence. My mathematics say they spend 30 times more per capita than we do on their neutrality. We face an ever-present threat. I have said time and again in this House that the bad actors on the eastern side of the European Union are not going to be deterred or suppressed by soft talk and blandishments. History has taught us that tyrannical people in the Kremlin, Mr. Putin and his ilk, do not seem to respect the norms of sovereignty and independence of the people of the various republics in Europe. It seems there is an ever-present dimension of trying to destabilise the European Union and replace it with what they see as their hegemony. To counter that, we have to, no pun intended, bite the bullet of increasing our level of expenditure and integration with European Union defence and, if necessary, with NATO as well. Mr. Putin would not in any way be deterred from interfering with our undersea cables, for example, just because we fly the flag of neutrality. We have to consider, however unpalatable it might be, that there is a strong urgency to invest in our defence budget. I was gratified to see a quiet announcement by the Department in the past few weeks without any great fuss or bluster that we are transferring non-lethal assets to Ukraine. That is praiseworthy. I applaud the work of the Government in that regard.

On matters closer to home, Senators O'Reilly and Scahill spoke raised sheltered housing and those sort of facilities for our older people. That was mooted in Tramore. The Minister who came down to give a feasibility budget was Jan O'Sullivan. That shows how long ago it was. It seems to be stillborn. I wonder what is happening to these schemes brought along by the enthusiasm of local communities but for one reason or another ran out of steam. I would love if somebody could investigate why this happened and what can be done to regenerate the impetus. The older population is increasing dramatically and they will be sorely needed. There is also a spin-off that a lot of social housing could be freed up as a result.