Post-European Council Meeting: Statements
Dail Éireann — 2026-07-08
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Sinéad Gibney (SD), Dublin Rathdown

I mentioned in my earlier remarks this drift that I see the European Union has taken away from its origins as a peace project towards a defence union. There are multiple milestones - I will not revisit them all - such as appointing a defence Commissioner who openly talks about a European defence union. I really was surprised to hear the Taoiseach describe this as a priority for Ireland's holding of the Presidency, with the disbursement of EU military assistance and the facilitating of the integration of Ukraine into the European defence industrial base. That really is a departure from any kind of policy of military neutrality that we hold as a nation. I appreciate that the Minister of State personally does not support that policy of military neutrality but that, as a member of the Government, he does. How is that compatible?
How and why are we prioritising such a defence-based mechanism and defence-based priority that threatens our own military neutrality? Many of us on the Opposition benches struggled with that package of aid because it could not be divided into non-lethal military aid versus arms. This is questionable and undermines our policy of military neutrality. It is something that I would like to hear more on.
My second question relates to Aughinish Alumina. There were sanctions voted on today. While I appreciate and acknowledged earlier that the Minister of State's grouping voted in support of those sanctions, we are going to need to hear as a Chamber about why on earth his coalition colleague partners - I know he cannot answer but he has to answer as a Government - abstained from that vote.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-07-08/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:07+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-07-08