Taoiseach's Meetings and Engagements
Dail Éireann — 2022-05-17
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Richard Boyd Barrett (PBP), Dún Laoghaire

I find the timing of the Taoiseach's visit to Finland and Estonia interesting because this weekend sees the biggest NATO military exercise in decades, which was planned before the war in Ukraine, taking place in Estonia involving Finland and Sweden, countries which are now planning to abandon their neutrality. That is the decision for them. It is interesting, however, that in advance of the war in Ukraine, NATO was planning massive military exercises, which it is now carrying out all over eastern Europe. We must all rightly continue to condemn the unjustifiable, brutal and murderous aggression of Putin but as a neutral country do we have nothing to say about this growing move into essentially dividing Europe into two armed military camps which are sidling up against each other in a pretty alarming way?

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2022-05-17/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:50:27+00:00
Sitting date: 2022-05-17