Defence Forces
Dail Éireann — 2023-10-03
============================================================

Bríd Smith (PBP), Dublin South-Central

If I could expand on the question, I am sure the cultural changes the Tánaiste talks about are all that he touched on, but he will notice that a lot of us were alarmed when he was in Ukraine that he announced that Irish forces would be providing rifle training. Hitherto, casualty care training was provided with the German army, and demining and explosives clearance were provided with the Polish army. When asked if he considered rifle training as non-lethal aid, his answer was that: "Our support for Ukraine is multifaceted and it is important we ensure that it continues to be relevant, flexible and fit for purpose." He said that this is a basic self-defence issue and it is humanitarian to defend your own people. If I fire a rifle, a bullet would come out of it, and if that bullet hit somebody, it is likely to kill them, yet he described it as non-lethal and humanitarian. Would the Tánaiste apply the same logic to supplying weapons training, for example, to Hamas if it wants to defend its community on a humanitarian basis against the Israeli army tearing down their villages and their lives?

---

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/2023-10-03/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:52:13+00:00
Sitting date: 2023-10-03