Paul Murphy
Dublin South-West · People Before Profit-Solidarity · Ireland
“The Minister of State assured us we are bound by international law but then went on to talk about the fact that he wants to deploy troops outside the framework of international law. That is why the Government is getting rid of the triple lock. All the triple lock does is ensure that we only can send troops in line with international law.”
“The case for MetroLink south west is extremely strong. There are 350,000 people living between the Luas red and green lines. That is who will be served by this.”
“Hopefully the junior Minister will be able to clarify. The Minister, Deputy McEntee, said earlier to Deputy Ó Laoghaire, "The people I speak to do not like the fact that Russia has essentially removed, or will remove in the coming months, all our peacekeeping troops from UNIFIL".”
“I, too, want to ask about the senior Minister. This came up at the Dáil reform committee last week. It is very peculiar that a senior Minister is here and has answered previous questions on the triple lock today and then – no offence meant - we have the junior Minister answering these questions, which precisely prevents the continuation o…”
“Its defence is that we should not worry because the Government is only going to send them as part of an international force. I do not think anyone here thinks the Government is going to invade a country all by itself.”
“It is there in black and white in the programme for Government and the Government needs to live up to its commitment to do a new, properly independent feasibility study. I appeal to the Minister of State to ask the Minister for Transport to meet with the metro south west group which has been doing such excellent campaigning on this issue.”
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“It is there in black and white in the programme for Government and the Government needs to live up to its commitment to do a new, properly independent feasibility study. I appeal to the Minister of State to ask the Minister for Transport to meet with the metro south west group which has been doing such excellent campaigning on this issue.”
“The case for MetroLink south west is extremely strong. There are 350,000 people living between the Luas red and green lines. That is who will be served by this. What we are asking for is for the Government to live up to the commitment in the programme for Government to "[c]ommission an independent feasibility study into continuing MetroLink from the city to southwest Dublin." What appears to be happening from information from parliamentary questions and written correspondence is that is being rode back on. It has now turned into part of this being examined as part of a broader strategic review process by the NTA. In other words, it is just part of a regular, six-yearly review process. Getting the NTA to do it is not independent and it is not a feasibility study.”
“Its defence is that we should not worry because the Government is only going to send them as part of an international force. I do not think anyone here thinks the Government is going to invade a country all by itself. Can the Minister of State confirm that NATO would be a designated international force under the draft legislation to get rid of the triple lock?”
“The Minister of State assured us we are bound by international law but then went on to talk about the fact that he wants to deploy troops outside the framework of international law. That is why the Government is getting rid of the triple lock. All the triple lock does is ensure that we only can send troops in line with international law. The Minister of State, Deputy Troy, stated, "Ireland's position on the use of force where there is no UN mandate or authorisation is well established and known. For fear that anyone is in any doubt, let me be clear: it is wrong and it is illegal." The UN Charter is really clear. A country can use its troops when it is being attacked - which the triple lock does not apply to - or when it is for a UN-authorised peacekeeping mission. The Government wants to send troops abroad outside of that framework.”
“Hopefully the junior Minister will be able to clarify. The Minister, Deputy McEntee, said earlier to Deputy Ó Laoghaire, "The people I speak to do not like the fact that Russia has essentially removed, or will remove in the coming months, all our peacekeeping troops from UNIFIL". I ask the junior Minister to clarify on the Minister's behalf that presumably she did not mean Russia but, rather, the US and Israel, and that is misinformation she read into the record. I also ask him to clarify why the draft Bill refers to principles of the UN Charter rather than articles of the UN Charter. Is it because the Government does not want to be bound by international law, which is very clear in its conditions, but, rather, by general principles of the UN Charter?”
“I, too, want to ask about the senior Minister. This came up at the Dáil reform committee last week. It is very peculiar that a senior Minister is here and has answered previous questions on the triple lock today and then – no offence meant - we have the junior Minister answering these questions, which precisely prevents the continuation of the debate. The same thing happened previously.”
“With average rents at €21,060 a year, this would be some achievement when the median wage of Ukrainian workers according to the Central Statistics Office, CSO, is less than €30,000.”
“Is this what the Government wants? Is this what Sinn Féin wants? They might not but they seem prepared to take the risk that this is what is going to happen for the perceived political gain of being seen to be hard on immigration and hard on Ukrainians in particular. It is a glaring contradiction for the Government in particular, with it hosting President Zelenskyy in Dublin, talking about doing everything we can for the Ukrainian people and praising them on the one hand and, on the other, turfing tens of thousands of Ukrainians out onto the streets. The temporary protection transition scheme, due to open for applications in September, is to be limited to households earning at least €29,432 a year that somehow manage to pay for accommodation privately out of this. ARP recipients are not eligible.”
“A landlord can earn €1,166 a month tax free under the rent-a-room scheme compared to €600 now and €400 in the future through the ARP. Nobody who is solely motivated by money would choose the ARP over the rent-a-room scheme. It is not competing with the private rental market. The vast majority of hosts are hosting people in their own homes out of humanitarian concern and humanitarian motivation. With this cut, many of them simply will not be able to do it any more. The only other option open to many Ukrainians forced out of their homes as a result of this cut will be to apply for international protection. What happens if tens of thousands of people do this? The system will become even more overwhelmed. That is what happened in France when over 11,000 applications for international protection were made by Ukrainians last year.”
“It will mean thousands or tens of thousands of newly homeless people, overwhelmingly women, children and families. These people will not have the right to emergency accommodation. Very many of them will have no choice but to go on the streets. This will be the consequence of the decision. Is this what the Government wants? Is it what Sinn Féin wants? Sinn Féin's contribution to this debate, not just today but every time we have discussed it, has simply been to say to go after the Ukrainians harder and make it even more difficult for them to access accommodation than the Government wants to make it. Sinn Féin's amendment also manufactures a non-existing conflict between the ARP and the rent-a-room scheme by saying that ARP hosts must not have availed of the scheme in the past two years.”
“I oppose this new cut to the accommodation recognition payment. This is the second cut to the payment, which was previously cut from €800 to €600, and now the Government wants to cut it further to €400. The Irish Red Cross has written to all of us outlining the devastating impact this cut will have not only on the 41,072 people who rely on it to keep a roof over their heads but, potentially, on the wider migration and accommodation systems in this country. Already since the Government announced its intention to cut the ARP, an increasing number of hosting arrangements are ending. A Red Cross survey of hosts found that the current rate of €600 was important for 86% of them to continue hosting. If even a fraction of that 86% stop hosting because they simply cannot afford it any more, what will it mean?”
“I raise the case of Fergie Chambers, an American activist and heir to the Cox family fortune, who has spent millions of euro supporting progressive causes, in particular assisting Palestinian people. On Friday, he was arrested in Ibiza on foot of an extradition request from US authorities. According to the indictment, he has been charged with international money-laundering, riot and conspiracy to riot. It alleges that he transferred approximately €7.5 million out of the country in order to seek opportunities to provide material support to Hamas. In reality this is money spent on humanitarian projects. It is an example of the long reach of the US Administration and an attempt to crack down on any pro-Palestinian solidarity, for which he potentially faces a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.”
“The one issue I have with the motion is the idea that there should be a loan scheme for parents to buy laptops or iPads for their children. We are supposed to have free primary and secondary education in this country. I know we are a long way off from it in reality but we should not be legitimising the idea that parents should be forced into debt to fund their children's education. Instead, we should be demanding that the Government fully fund the cost of education for every child in this country.”
“That is what is driving schools to tell parents that the kids have to have an iPad, tablet or Chromebook. We need independent analysis of whether and when technology is beneficial in the classroom instead of just dancing to the tune of big tech as we do in so many other areas is of policy. Obviously if the Department is going to insist on ed tech being used, it needs to fully fund it. Instead, it has cut the grant scheme for ICT infrastructure for schools by 30%. It provides no funding for repair and maintenance of digital devices. We have a bit of a cruel joke whereby schoolbooks are being made free, which is great, but on the other hand we are using them less and instead parents are being forced to pay more and more for technology.”
“A couple of months ago, I was contacted by a grandfather whose granddaughter was told she needed to have an iPad in school and needed to pay €500 for an iPad. It is an absolutely crazy situation where we have free education in this country and yet many schools impose this massive burden on families, many of whom simply cannot afford it. I accept the Minister has written to schools saying they cannot make these compulsory but it is not wiping this practice out across the board. The costs are absolutely staggering and are rising each year. We need to have some analysis on whether it is good for children to be using iPads, laptops and so on. The Department of education has gone all-in on so-called ed tech without much real scrutiny of whether it is beneficial.”
“We are now in the middle of July and ground has not even been broken. I appeal to the Minister not to wash his hands of this, to engage with the council to track delivery and to make sure that this centre opens next year.”
“This is not only an issue for South Dublin County Council. I obviously accept the point that an application for funding needs to be made if funding is to be granted. The reason Citywest has developed in the way it has, with homes but no adequate facilities, is the fast-track strategic housing development process. The local area plan, which included these kinds of requirements, was ignored. Developers went straight down the strategic housing development route, got permission for huge developments and then did not put in the facilities. They were sometimes promised. Community centres and crèches were often promised. They were often part of the planning permission. They ultimately were not delivered, however. The council previously said that the community centre would be delivered in June of this year.”
“In 2018, it was made a condition of planning permission. The developer built the homes but the community centre was not developed. The latest is that something is now happening but the Minister's attention would assist with that.”
“If you look up developer-led planning in a dictionary, I am sure you will find a picture of Citywest. It is quite incredible. It is one of the fastest growing communities in all of Ireland. Almost 4,000 homes have been built in a decade. More than 2,000 were built in just the last three years. What came with the houses? There is no community centre and no public crèche places. Families are on waiting lists for a long time across the area. There are no sports pitches. The couple of parks and playgrounds provided for tens of thousands of people are working overtime. Residents say they feel forgotten. They are absolutely right. This is just classic developer-led planning. It is about throwing up homes without providing facilities to allow people to integrate and build a community. The story of this community centre has been a saga.”
“Citywest has been waiting for more than 20 years for a community centre. It was written into the local area plan in 2012. It was promised again when that plan was extended. It was made a binding condition of planning permission in 2018. Since then, nearly 4,000 homes have been built and hundreds more are now planned at Boherboy and there is still no community centre. The council's capital plan does not show any grant from the Minister's Department. Is that correct? Why not? Will the Minister engage with the council to make sure the centre opens next year as promised?”
“People's needs - our need for a society which is meaningful and produces decent art - and the needs of artists and creative people, all that needs to come before the profits of big tech in our society.”
“No worker or user of public or private services should be forced to interact with AI and have AI deal with their data without their consent. We also need to place real limits on data centres. They are using up 80% of the electricity in Dublin and an unknown quantity of water. It may be the reason for the restrictions that we are currently seeing, but we do not know because they do not have to tell us how much water they are using. Despite the data centres being so huge already, they want to double. They want to double so that they can deal with the insatiable demand of AI. That cannot be allowed to happen. If it does, it makes it impossible for us to reach our climate targets. We need an outright ban on more data centres being built and we need real restrictions on the ones that are already here.”
“Something in it gets to the heart of the kind of anti-humanist philosophy that many of these big tech leaders spout. There was one recently talking about being confronted with the cost of training AI. They said it costs a lot to train humanity. Look at all the food you have to feed a baby and all the energy you have to commit to a baby to raise a human. They said a human takes more energy than AI to develop. It is a deeply anti-humanist philosophy. These people fundamentally do not get it - that what makes art and music special is human input. That is what we see in it. That is what we appreciate. You cannot create it by generative AI. The fight-back against AI has to start now. We can start by legislating for the right to opt out of AI.”
“Instead, we get world leaders and our own Taoiseach rabbiting on about a fourth industrial revolution that will change everything and saying that this is as important as the printing press. We need to recognise this as the pure corporate propaganda that it is and start asking who benefits from it. Certainly not artists or not musicians, and it will not benefit people generally either. This motion is right to warn that generative AI may lead to a decline in the quality of human cultural and creative production. The truth is that is already happening. The tech industry wants us to outsource our brains to AI and to let it do our thinking, writing and creating for us. It sounds to me like a very dystopian future that we should be doing everything in our power to avoid.”
“Legal streaming services are epitomised by Spotify, whose whole business model is based on ripping off artists financially, which it is, and now, through generative AI, ripping off and copying their music and turning it into AI slop as well. Now that we have a situation whereby big tech has effectively pirated pretty much the entire creative output of humanity, what is the official response? Are the big tech bosses being rounded up? Are they being arrested? Are they being told, "You wouldn't steal a car", given that they have stolen effectively all of the music that has ever been created? Talk about one rule for us and another for those at the top. We do not get that. We do not get any arrests. We do not get any kicking down the doors of the big tech companies.”
“I am old enough to remember those ads that started with "You wouldn't steal a car." I went and watched the ad. It says: "You wouldn't steal a car, you wouldn't steal a handbag, you wouldn't steal a television, you wouldn't steal a DVD but downloading pirated films is stealing." It finishes with "Piracy. It's a crime." I remember what came after that, which was a furore about Napster, LimeWire and The Pirate Bay. Ordinary people who downloaded an album or a video were demonised as pirates and threatened with court cases, fines and even prison sentences. Even today, ordinary people can be criminalised if they download material illegally as opposed to using legal streaming services.”
“Lots of people have correctly said it is not unstoppable, but the big tech line is this is unstoppable and you have to get on this train or else you are going to lose out. That is a narrative of inevitability deliberately created and propagated by the big tech companies who profit from AI, who want to profit from AI in the future, and who are currently gambling billions on it. They are in it up to their necks right now and they want to put us all in the same situation so that it becomes impossible for us to turn back. They want to hook us on generative AI like they have hooked us on social media and then start charging us through the nose for it, whether that is through user fees, advertising or selling our personal data to the highest bidder. There is an immense hypocrisy here.”
“I thank Sinn Féin for bringing this motion for IMRO, for its campaigning on this issue and for the artists who have spoken out and highlighted it. It is high time that this Government, which has gulped down big tech's Kool-Aid and regurgitated it for the public in an unthinking way, is forced to reflect on the downsides of AI, which are very many, not just for artists and the creatives in our society, but for our society as a whole. I do not think anyone wants a world where the majority of the Internet and the majority of even supposedly creative content is AI slop, but that is the future we are heading towards. That is the future unless we collectively call stop and pull the brake on generative AI. It is not an unstoppable train even now. In the AI committee, we have been treated to person after person telling us this is unstoppable.”
“Prevention is always better than cure, so the Government should be tackling gender-based violence at source by combating misogyny, including by turning off toxic algorithms that are driving toxic content and toxic real-world behaviour.”
“It is happening among young men, who in the past would always have had more progressive attitudes than those who went before them. One of the primary drivers of this is the online manosphere. It propagates toxic masculinity and hatred of women for profit. Millions of people around the world are being exposed to this toxic content every time they log in to social media and the big tech companies are making millions out of it. It is normalising misogyny on a global scale. It is a kind of mass brainwashing that is driving attitudes towards women back into the dark ages. It is not good enough just to deal with the after-effects.”
“Unfortunately, this law, while welcome, is only one part of the battle in a war against male violence against women. Gender-based violence is endemic. It is an epidemic. The courts are full of women seeking barring and harassment orders. Thousands of children are growing up in violent homes. As of last week, eight women had been killed in Ireland so far this year. They are Scarlett Faulkner, Linda Costello, Milena Ostojic, Yveta Donovalova, Masuma Sohrabi, Noreen Daly, Adina Constantin and Jamey Carney. Yesterday in Ballymeena, another woman and girl whose names we do not know yet were murdered. Laws like this one are welcome, but they cannot tear out the problem by its roots, which are in sexism, misogyny and the way capitalism breeds and profits from that sexism and misogyny. We all know it is on the rise.”
“However, there is no provision in it for An Garda Síochána to proactively disclose a violent offender's history to a new partner. The Minister has previously said that, under Operation Devise, An Garda Síochána will provide support to new partners of people with serious domestic violence convictions, closely monitor any evidence of new violence and have a proactive arrest policy, but that is not the same as knocking on a door and warning a woman that her partner has a violent past. Instead, the law puts all the onus on women and other members of the public, such as their friends and family, to look up the domestic violence judgments register. It has been possible in other jurisdictions to enable proactive disclosure, so I am not sure why it cannot be done here.”
“I pay tribute to the family of Jennie Poole, and particularly her brother Jason, who is in the Gallery and who fought very hard for many years to get this important legislation implemented in her memory. It is a tragedy that the law has come too late for Jennie, but it has the potential to protect other women at risk from dangerous intimate partners. At the moment and until this law is passed, there is no way for people to find out whether their partners have a history of violence against women, even if they have previously been convicted of a serious offence, such as rape or coercive control, and even if they have served a prison sentence for it. The Bill was, in part, inspired by the domestic violence disclosure scheme in England and Wales.”
“Sucking up to US power is the pinnacle of the political ambition of every establishment TD in the House. We saw it here with the visit of President Biden, with TDs embarrassing themselves by fawning over him despite his also being a war criminal like every US President before and since. It will be the same with the visit of President Trump if he comes in September: right-wing politicians attracted to power no matter how disgusting that power is. This Bill attempts to place some small limits on US power, to carve out a space for Irish neutrality, to say, "No, you cannot use our country, our independent State, to launch your unprovoked wars and to murder innocent people."”
“The 1907 Hague Convention (V) on neutrality states: Belligerents are forbidden to move troops or convoys of either munitions of war or supplies across the territory of a neutral Power. Why, then, have successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments permitted the world's most notorious belligerent, the rogue state that is the US not only under Trump but also under every previous US President, to have essentially free and unfettered access to Shannon Airport? The answer is the same as for every example of cowardice, every new instance of craven bootlicking by our quisling Government and the previous ones. Micheál Martin, Simon Harris, Helen McEntee and the rest of the Government will literally stop at nothing to maintain and attract US foreign direct investment, so much so that they would probably take that statement as a compliment.”
“They are using Shannon to refuel before heading on to Lebanon and Palestine to bomb, to maim and to murder innocent civilians, including over 20,000 Palestinian children killed and more than 44,000 injured since the latest phase of the genocide began in October 2023. The use of Shannon Airport in this way has made us complicit in every illegal US war in recent decades. Every time the US launches another illegal war, the numbers of US troops and US flights passing through Shannon increase significantly. During the war in Iraq, numbers climbed from 76,500 in 2002 to over 125,000 in 2003. They peaked at over 340,000 in 2005, one of the bloodiest years of the war. All of this is in obvious violation of our status as a neutral state. It is in clear breach of international law.”
“Recent US military flights from Shannon have included Omni Air N378AX, which landed at Shannon Airport on 25 June, coming from US Pope Army Air Field, Fort Bragg, North Carolina. It took off on 26 June and flew on to Sofia, Bulgaria. It then flew from Sofia to south-west Jordan. US Air Force C-40B No. 01-0041 landed in Shannon at about 9.22 p.m. on 24 June, coming from MacDill Air Force Base, Florida, and flew on to Tel Aviv. The destinations of these flights show that they are using Shannon Airport as a pit stop on their way to take part in illegal US-Israeli wars in the Middle East.”
“Perhaps the only good thing Donald Trump has done as US President is to rename the US Department of Defense the Department of War, because that is what it has always been. Since 1945, the US has invaded or militarily intervened in 96 countries. Since 2001, when the US use of Shannon Airport escalated, the US has engaged in three full-scale wars, bombed at least ten countries, directly killed close to a million people, and injured and indirectly killed many millions more. The US likes to portray itself as the world's policeman; in reality, it has always been the world's worst terrorist, a terrorist that we are aiding and abetting by allowing it to use Shannon Airport. According to figures collated by Shannonwatch, 3.178 million US troops passed through Shannon Airport between 2002 and July 2024.”
“I move: That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to prohibit U.S. military aircraft, or civil aircraft carrying munitions of war, from landing in the State. I am very pleased to introduce this important Bill. Its purpose is very simple: to stop the scandalous use of Shannon Airport as a de facto US military base. It does this by instating a very simple and clear prohibition on US military aircraft, and US civil aircraft carrying munitions of war, from landing in the State. Why are we singling out the US in this way? Because it is the one using Shannon Airport as a military base. It is the one using Shannon to prosecute illegal wars of aggression and genocide around the world. No other country on earth has such a bloody and infamous track record.”
“The report points out that "children may wait longer than clinically recommended for assessment, investigation or treatment, with potential consequences for clinical outcomes, disease progression, and quality of life." Does the Minister agree that just as private healthcare has no place in our public maternity hospitals, it similarly has no place in CHI? We should not be building private suites in the national children’s hospital. We should not be building inequality into our health system.”
“There is often an attempt to suggest that discrimination between private and public patients does not have an impact on safety or patient care. That happened in the debate on the Rotunda. The Minister was involved and was on the correct side of that debate. I again quote the report, which states, "For Spinal patients, only 41% (9 out of 22) were treated within the Clinical Recommended Timeframes (CRTs), meaning 59% faced delays, sometimes for several months." In terms of urology, "Of the 73 patients reviewed, 30 (41%) were treated outside the Clinical Recommended Timeframes." The median delay was 152 days. There was one case where a child waited seven years for routine surgery.”
“Urology consultant 2 had 20 public patients with an average wait time of 12.4 months and ten private patients with an average wait time of 1.84 months. The other consultants are not as bad but there is a discrepancy between private and public. The same applies when you go into orthopaedics. Consultant 6 has 12 public patients with an average waiting time of 1.7 months and three private patients with average waiting times of zero. There are other examples.”
“I thought there was some incredible spin, and some sections of the media absolutely fell for it, suggesting that this report proves there is no evidence of inequity in access. The Minister has echoed that. That is the first finding, but the full sentence states, "No evidence of inequity ... was identified; however, this conclusion is constrained by significant limitations in data availability, classification, and sample size." It is essentially exploiting perhaps deliberately poor record keeping, to claim that preferential access cannot be proved, but it does not change the fact that preferential access was found in the report. It is there in black and white on page 109 in the context of urology.”
“The Minister has said she believes in equality for every baby born in our public maternity hospitals and I absolutely agree. However, the EY report into CHI shows that children whose parents can afford to go private are being prioritised for essential surgery in our public hospitals. Surely the same equality should apply to children as well.”
“Europe has turned the corner on decades of underinvestment in defence. Member States increased defence budgets from €218 billion in 2021, to €343 billion in 2024. This is all explicitly, positively referenced in the programme of the Irish Presidency. A neutral State is saying this is great and is driving the further militarisation of Europe. It is driving greater spending on weapons in Europe and it thinks that is a good thing. Mark Rutte, the NATO chief, said spending more on defence means spending less on other priorities. That is the mantra of political establishments across Europe. You will not get investment in housing or transport and you can forget about action on climate because they will spend more on weapons that do not make ordinary people any safer but make armaments companies a lot richer.”
“The Irish State has said it is going to sign up to this Security Action For Europe, SAFE, project and borrow money in order to invest money in the military; the co-ordinated activation of the national escape clause of the Stability and Growth Pact. The fiscal rules are not going to apply to military expenditure. We are falling deeper and deeper into a housing crisis that is not only in Ireland but across Europe. We have never suspended fiscal rules for the housing crisis but they are getting suspended for militarisation; making existing EU instruments more flexible to allow greater defence investment; contributions for the European Investment Bank; mobilising private capital; and financial predictability. If we read the associated defence-readiness roadmap 2030, it is the same stuff.”
“Section 8, enhanced security through partnerships, states: NATO remains the cornerstone of collective defence of its members in Europe. EU-NATO co-operation is an indispensable pillar for the development of the EU security and defence dimension. The EUs unique tools of regulatory power and financial instruments help the 23 EU Member States in NATO to achieve their capability targets. Explicitly, a Government that says it is never going to go near NATO or anything like that is now saying a priority is to uphold this indispensable pillar of EU-NATO co-operation. Section 7 looks for a surge in defence spending. That is what is promised and what is in reality already under way via: a new dedicated financial instrument to support member states' defence investments.”
“If anybody believed this guff, they should go and pay some attention to what the Government is openly saying are its priorities for the European Presidency. Ireland is President of the European Council for the next six months and it has three priorities; values, competitiveness, and security. We are supposedly neutral State, saying that one of our three priorities is security. What does that mean in detail? I quote: "The Irish Presidency will advance work on the measures set out in the White Paper on the future of European defence and the associated defence-readiness roadmap 2030 and on defence procurement." The Government is saying openly it is going to advance the White Paper on the future of European defence and the defence-readiness roadmap. What does the White Paper for European defence say?”
“It does not just train people to remove landmines. That was the propaganda put out at the time but if the Minister of State read into the detail, he would know that is not what it stated. He will be able to go and check it later. The Government attempted - it appears the armoured vehicles were too rusty and perhaps would have presented a threat to the poor Ukrainian conscripts - to offload armoured vehicles which were armed with grenade launchers or machine guns. It still tried to pass that off as being non-lethal military aid. However, we should not worry; neutrality is not under threat. As part of the national maritime security strategy, the Government participates in the Joint Expeditionary Force - an alliance made-up of ten NATO members and led by Britain. However, we should not worry; neutrality is not under threat.”
“The Government likes to tell us it does not have our neutrality in its crosshairs. It tells us it is planning to drop the triple lock so that a future government or this Government could send troops outside of the framework of international law on NATO missions to invade countries in the Middle East or elsewhere. However, we should not worry; neutrality is not under threat. It tells us it wants to triple our military expenditure but we should not worry, neutrality is not under threat. It participates in the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, described as a NATO alliance by the US Secretary of Defence. We have now attended 30 of these meetings, which take place either online or in NATO headquarters, either in Brussels or the air command in Germany. It engages in training Ukrainian troops involved in a war against an imperialist invader-----”