EU Presidency
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-05
============================================================

Neale Richmond (FG), Dublin Rathdown

Crucially, every challenge we face in Europe at the moment goes back to global instability. When the pillar of development is removed, the foundation stone of that global stability is removed. You are creating more problems for yourself on direct bilateral relations and allowing more malevolent actors fill the space of more benevolent actors.
The Deputy is quite right that certain member states are cutting development aid and saying they need to put it towards security and defence. I do not buy that argument for an instant. If you are serious about security, including energy, food, political and domestic security, and managing migration in supporting those who need to migrate as well as making sure countries can handle and meet the requirements they have, you have to invest in development. It is a complete misnomer and false argument to say we are taking money from development to put into security. By taking money from development, you are forcing yourself to put more money into security. It is why the Government has not only not cut our development budget but is committed to increasing our security budget. The two are absolutely interlinked. You cannot do one by cutting off the other.

---

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/2026-02-05/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:36+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-05