Cabinet Committees
Dail Éireann — 2023-10-03
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Paul Murphy (PBP), Dublin South-West

I want to raise with the Taoiseach the participation of Irish soldiers in the EU's military assistance mission of Ukraine. We opposed Ireland's participation. We explained that this was a full-spectrum military training mission and a clear breach of neutrality. In response, Government representatives repeatedly said that Irish soldiers would only be involved in non-lethal training. A statement that went out from the Department after a Government meeting during the summer again stated that Ireland would be involved in things like de-mining and combat medicine but then it emerged, thanks to The Irish Times , that the Irish military is actually providing basic weapons training to Ukrainian soldiers. Yesterday, we had the spectacle of the Tánaiste explaining on the radio how providing training in using a rifle somehow qualifies as non-lethal training. Does the Taoiseach also believe that training people how to shoot rifles is non-lethal training? Does the Taoiseach accept that this is clearly lethal training? Does the Taoiseach accept that this is clearly yet another breach of Ireland's neutrality and a horrific abuse of Putin's invasion of Ukraine to drive this pre-existing agenda of removing what is left of neutrality and aligning Ireland with the western powers of NATO and the process of militarisation within the European Union?

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2023-10-03/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:52:13+00:00
Sitting date: 2023-10-03