Yesterday the Tánaiste said he was open to EU treaty change to delete vetoes held by the Dáil and other national parliaments on EU foreign policy and security issues. In other words, he is open to reducing the democratic say of the Irish people on incredibly important issues. This comes in the same week the three Government parties have decided to dump the triple lock mechanism, which is the cornerstone of Ireland’s neutrality. I cannot think of another time when our neutrality was under such sustained attack by an Irish Government. Ireland has a proud history of active neutrality. We have a record of EU peacekeeping, nuclear non-proliferation, decolonisation and aid to developing countries but the Government is looking to shred the honest broker reputation we have. Does all of this not add up to the Government trying to sign Ireland up to an emerging military bloc over whose decisions we will have little or no influence?

I thank the Deputy for recognising the extraordinary work done by previous Governments of all parties that have held government on issues such as our commitment to UN peacekeeping. I really respect the role of our Defence Forces in that regard. Considerable increases in overseas development aid, ODA, have occurred in the past couple of years. I thank the Deputy for those words and assure him that will continue. We have no proposals as a Government to join any military alliance. We will not do that but we will continue to contribute to the UN, particularly through peacekeeping. We will continue to work with NATO partners through the Partnership for Peace and with the EU on security questions through the PESCO arrangement but will not be joining a military alliance.