Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 24 November 2015
70. Deputy Mick Wallace asked the Minister for Defence if he has considered reviewing our existing policies on defence, with a view to taking a more active role in the promotion of peace and the protection of our neutrality, given the deteriorating situation in the Middle East and the total failure of the Western military intervention in the region; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [41185/15]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe Minister told us he was not going to lecture foreign countries on how they should best protect their citizens. I was not expecting him to tell President Hollande that it is pretty irrational to be bombing the living daylights out of Raqqa, where there are 500,000 citizens, and that it would not do much to protect the citizens of France. Does he not think, given the failure of all these military interventions, that it is time we stopped being complicit by allowing Shannon Airport to be used as a US military air base? The Minister is allowing his Defence Forces to go down there and protect military planes on their way to war situations.
The straight answer is that I do not. I do not think we should be making decisions on the basis of what people think in other parts of the world about who is using our airports and who is not. We have had a policy for many decades of facilitating the US with the use of Shannon Airport under a fairly strict protocol, which is the responsibility of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. That is as it is. Ireland has an extraordinarily positive record in terms of its involvement abroad in conflict areas. Deputy Wallace seems to be suggesting that in every part of the world where there has been Western intervention, as he calls it, it has been a disaster. That is not always the case. Irish peacekeepers in southern Lebanon have played a significant role in rescuing many lives. On the Golan Heights the Irish Defence Forces are currently playing a real stabilising role, and the UN wants us to stay. Defence Forces personnel in Mali, under difficult circumstances and clearly in a dangerous part of the world, are helping to train national security services to protect their own citizens. There are many examples, particularly involving Irish troops, where intervention abroad is necessary and has a positive dividend for local populations.
Deputy Wallace's view of the world seems to be that the West should simply pull out of the Middle East, should have no involvement in places like north Africa and should simply allow dictators to run riot in regions.
I am not suggesting that intervention has always been successful. In many cases, intervention has caused severe problems and triggered lots of other problems. I am saying that Irish decisions, in relation to both where we send our troops and our relationship with other sovereign countries, are based on trying to support peace, stability and democracy and protecting human rights of vulnerable people in exposed circumstances, and I stand over that.
The Minister's argument is completely irrational. How can the Minister stand up there and make out that the military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Syria, have been successful?
I have not.
Shannon has been used to facilitate military intervention-----
I have not said that.
I did not interrupt the Minister.
I did not quote Deputy Wallace.
Shannon has been used as a US military air base to facilitate its military intervention in those countries, and it has destroyed them. Over 2 million citizens have been killed, and we are part of it.
The Government is content to let this go on. What has this got to do with keeping peace? The Minister states that we are good at peacekeeping. We are not keeping much peace by allowing Shannon to be used as a US military air base. We are facilitating the slaughter of innocent people.
In the past five years alone, arms exports have increased by 16%. Militarisation of the planet is destroying it. Military intervention has created numerous failed states in this region and there is a vacuum which is being filled by ISIS. The Government is still prepared to do business with Saudi Arabia, which is facilitating ISIS. The Government has no difficulty with that. It is crazy. How does the Minister stand over it?
With respect, Deputy Wallace is straying into sweeping statements on broad foreign policy.
They are not sweeping statements. I am simply being accurate.
They are sweeping statements.
My job as Minister for Defence is to ensure that when we make the decision to send Irish troops to different parts of the world, they are making a positive contribution towards stabilisation, peace support and peacekeeping, and that is exactly what they do. My job is to be prepared when An Garda Síochána asks for assistance in terms of aid to the civil power, whether it is in Shannon Airport or elsewhere. To date, the only threat to planes landing in Shannon Airport has been Irish people who were looking to create headlines in that regard.
We have a relationship with the United States, which is not one where we are allies but is certainly very friendly, and we facilitate the United States in Shannon Airport under fairly strict conditions. That is what it is, but the Deputy reads all sorts of extras into it that simply are not there.
We are facilitating them, but the price is unbelievably disappointing. Will the Minister not admit that what they are doing is destructive and that it has not helped peace? Did he read what the Pope said about it only last week, that the arms industry has just run out of control? The Pope stated what is happening is ludicrous but it is all in the interest of making money. We are facilitating it. When are we going to call a spade a spade and say that the Irish people do not like the idea of facilitating the US military machine, that 2.5 million US troops have gone through Shannon since 2001 and that we give permits for arms and munitions to go to these regions and to drop bombs on people's homes, killing some of them and creating refugees of what remains?
The Irish people do not want to be associated with the Minister's philosophy. It is about time the Government woke up to it. It is outrageous that we are continuing to support the US military position, for financial reasons and, perhaps, ideological reasons, but it is not what the Irish people want.
This is not about being for or against the so-called "US military machine". The US intervenes in different parts of the world for all sorts of different reasons.
One hundred and forty-five countries last year alone.
There is no simple philosophy behind it. In many ways, the US is damned if it does and damned if it does not. When there is a crisis, people call on the US to intervene.
We never called for them to intervene.
When they intervene and if, sometimes, they make mistakes, everybody blames everything on them. Not all the problems are the fault of the military machine, as the Deputy seems to make out.
I never said they were.
It is exactly what the Deputy says every time we have questions.
