Defence Matters: Statements Seanad Éireann — 2026-02-25 ============================================================ Gerard P. Craughwell (IND), Labour Panel I want to put something on the record. There has been a lot of talk here about the triple lock. There are many things coming in that legislation apart from the triple lock and I hope we will not find ourselves bogged down discussing something that is not related to our neutrality or our military non-alignment. If we think that is going to happen, it should be taken out of the legislation and let us have the legislation for the triple lock at a different time. Today we launch the national maritime strategy. Have we put the cart before the horse? There is no national security strategy. A sequential process should be the maritime strategy. Why are we launching a component of the national security strategy when we should have launched the strategy first? I often wonder when looking at Government whether there is any actual, credible, granular Government understanding of the polar opposites positioning in international security co-operation for Defence Forces, training and pre-operational capability development with Ireland having friendly-state troops and equipment deployed in Ireland for training purposes rather than an operational purpose. It is clear to me that within this House there is no understanding of the difference between an Executive and an non-Executive posture. The former, an Executive posture, would be in conflict with Article 29 of the Constitution. We hear a lot of talk of the French and the UK providing services or support to our security during the Presidency of the EU. I ask that we at least adhere to the Constitution. It is, after all, the will of the people. I have to hand a copy of the failures to implement the recommendations from the Commission on the Defence Forces. We have the appalling situation where the Tánaiste made a statement that he had sought €3.4 billion for defence and that the Department of public expenditure had given him €1.7 billion. Who runs this country? Is it some civil servant over in the Department of public expenditure? Who is responsible for these decisions? We are looking at 12 human resource and career development issues, six structural command reform issues, five infrastructure issues, two special operations capability issues, two flexible service and welfare issues, one medical services issues, two pay and allowances issues, seven capability development issues and six Reserve Defence Force issues. Forty-three of them are unimplemented. I know these came long before the Minister of State was in office, but we have constantly brought to the notice of Government how the post-2013 pension is destroying the Defence Forces, An Garda Síochána, the Prison Service and the fire service. Who is going to take on the Department of public expenditure and tell it who runs this country? Is it that Sir Humphrey decides what will be done and what will not be done? I always believed and saw in my life that when the Minister said it was so, it was so. A recent ruling by the European Committee of Social Rights deals with the issue of service personnel working on bank holidays, etc. There is no overtime. Will the Government commit to engage with the representative bodies on conciliation and arbitration and address the appalling vista whereby we are being ruled against in Europe is being ignored here in Ireland. It is simply not good enough. My colleague Senator Gallagher referred to the cadets. The Government has increased the age for entry to the cadets to 39 years of age. Are we seriously expecting a 39-year-old to come in and join the Defence Forces for €26,000 a year? It is outrageous that we would consider that. It is €28,800 in their second year. A private soldier earns more than a cadet, who is a future officer of the Irish Defence Forces. We have to look at the post-2013 pension urgently. We have to look at cadet pay urgently and, for God's sake, let us not go down the rabbit hole of the God damn triple lock as we try to pass legislation in this country. Everybody should go away and read what neutrality means before they start conflating it with something. Would we go down the road and ask our next-door neighbour whether we can leave the kids out to play? It is absolute absurdity. Let us get rid of the triple lock, for God's sake. --- 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/seanad/2026-02-25/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:41+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-02-25