Charles Ward: Defend Irish Neutrality, Back Sanctions

Thank you Deputy Brian Stanley and his staff for bringing forward this motion on defence and neutrality. Maintaining our neutrality has never been more important. From Gaza to Ukraine, to the Sudan, to the escalating tensions in Iran and the wider Middle East conflict, we are facing an era of overlapping conflict, instability, displacement and humanitarian crisis. Millions of people are being affected by war and famine, instability and devastating consequences that extend far beyond borders. Rather than becoming desensitised now more than ever, we must stand in solidarity with the communities impacted with conflict and support all efforts towards peace and resolution. At a time of growing instability, our voice is more important than ever and our long-standing experience with conflict and resolution can play a vital role. This is the experience and skills that we have as a country to offer peace building, diplomacy and dialogue. In a time of deep division these are the qualities that are most needed but we can only play this role from a position of neutrality where our voices remain credible, independent and focused on peace. Neutrality fosters trust. The importance of this cannot be underestimated and I can't understand why Fianna Fáil and Finlay Gael are so keen to undermine our neutrality, particularly in the recent years. What do you think can be achieved by this? Nothing. It won't help us in any kind of way. A military approach has repeatedly failed to deliver lasting peace in many of the world's conflict zones and has done nothing but deepen divisions and cause further suffering. We can honestly say that increased military intervention and increased defence spending in the EU and international level has brought no closure to conflicts. Absolutely nothing and it's clear that many interventions have actually contributed to further escalations of human suffering and prolonged conflict and diverted focus away from the most important thing, diplomatic solutions and productive dialogue. Although I'm not convinced that these countries staging such interventions are motivated by peace or humanitarian concerns, strategic interests, economic priorities or outrageous displays of power often shape international responses in conflict and why would we want to play a part in this? We would threaten our reputation as a neutral country by actually dealing with us. It's much better to be a peace builder and we have nothing to offer them in terms of military power but we can offer much more than other countries can. Our strengths have always been peacekeeping and speaking out against injustice and oppression, not military might and this is something that we should be very proud of. Maintaining our neutrality does not mean that we remain silent or condone the atrocities that are occurring across the world. Neutrality should not be mistaken for indifference. We must continue to stand firmly for the human rights, international law and protection of innocent people while doing everything within our power to sanction these countries that are against human rights. Minister, you have the opportunity to do the right thing tonight by voting in favour of Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett's sanctions against the State of Israel Bill. Sanctions are important, measures in holding these perpetrators and making them accountable are important. We have a far more meaningful impact way than abandoning our neutrality would because if we keep on going the way we're going, we're heading for an almighty dark era in our country. Abandoning our neutrality only serves to facilitate wars and it does nothing to support victims. We always have been and always will be outspoken in international matters and as a country we've always cared deeply for our colonised and displaced people. Across the world, people have always been most vocal in Ireland, particularly when we're supporting Gaza and we can absolutely hold our neutrality while also standing for human rights and dignity. The government likes to tell us in one way or another that this isn't the case. The Irish people have a long valued and supported policy of neutrality and a recent poll showed that 71% of people think Irish neutrality should be added to the constitution and I think we should start listening to people Minister and we can start listening to people tonight by supporting the sanctions against the State of Israel Bill tonight.