Consultative Forum on International Security Policy: Statements Dail Éireann — 2023-05-18 ============================================================ Richard Boyd Barrett (PBP), Dún Laoghaire They are cynically using the utterly horrendous situation in Ukraine and the barbaric invasion by Russia of Ukraine to advance a project within NATO and the European Union of ratcheting up the militarisation of the European Union, developing a European army and moving closer to United States foreign policy in a way that is probably the greatest threat to Ireland's security. Of course, the Tánaiste will shake his head and say that this is not true but we have to look, not simply at people's assertions, but at certain facts. This week, NATO naval chiefs are in Cork with Irish naval chiefs. At the end of last year, we had a NATO assessment of Irish forces in Cork by a NATO general, Sam Mason. Of course it is true. The Tánaiste can read the reports in his own newspapers and the comments from Irish military chiefs about NATO presence there. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2023-05-18/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:51:55+00:00 Sitting date: 2023-05-18