Statements on the Report of the Sub-Committee on Ireland's Future in the EU - 9th December 2008

Statements on the Report of the Sub-Committee on Ireland's Future in the EU - 9th December 2008
Senator David Norris: I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Roche, back to the Chamber where he was once so comfortable and happy as a member of our little group here. There is no point in re-running the Lisbon Treaty referendum campaign and I do not think the Minister of State did that. Once or twice he wobbled a bit because his tenses got a little confused or because of the way in which he expressed himself. He seemed to state on one occasion "if" the Lisbon Treaty is ratified. Then once or twice he actually stated "when" the Lisbon Treaty is ratified. He hovered between optimism and anxiety, as we all have.
Anybody who is concerned with the future of this country must be concerned about our place at the centre of Europe. We have played a distinguished role over the years. It is remarkable that we have a woman at the head of the European bureaucracy in Brussels. We have had very significant Commissioners. We really punched above our weight in Europe, and I have always welcomed that.
I have been increasingly anxious. Although I have supported ultimately all the treaties we signed, I have been concerned about the incremental militarisation of the Union and that is the point at which I stuck. That is why I came out and opposed the Lisbon Treaty.
I was one of the first, if not the first, in this House to do so. My voice did not carry very far, although I am glad to say that some of my colleagues, who hovered nervously on the brink to see if I would be demolished by friendly or other fire, and who, when they found that I had survived, took a jump themselves, may have had more persuasive voices from different angles.
I will review a couple of the issues, and then get down to neutrality. First, there is the question of abortion. I am sure this will raise its head again. There was in the past a rather sly manoeuvre whereby the Irish people were out manoeuvred by those who, when it suits them, talk about democracy, and a secret protocol was inserted into a previous treaty.
At this point I am not arguing the merits of abortion, one way or the other. I am just as pro-life as anyone. I resent the colonisation of language that is represented by the takeover of these kinds of phrases. I am very much pro-life and my record will show that. As a tutor in Trinity College approximately one girl per year used come to me, probably because she thought I would not be judgmental. That meant about ten during the ten years I was tutor. I gave them information about non-directive counselling agencies. Nine of them did not have an abortion; one of them did. I think if that information had not been available, they all would have had an abortion. In fact, mine was very much a pro-life stance but it has been misinterpreted.
It is a very complex area. I do not intend to get into it, except to say this. I would very much hope if some such protocol is written in that it does not narrow or seek to narrow the already quite narrow judgments of the Supreme Court. It is important that we do not seek further to constrict. I will leave it at that.
Then there is the question of the Commissioner. There have been statements recently that we would get our own Commissioner. Why, out of all the 27 countries, should Ireland be the one to get a Commissioner?
Senator Terry Leyden: Everyone gets one.
Senator David Norris: That will mean 27 of them.
Senator Terry Leyden: Yes.
Senator David Norris: The Commission will be quite big. That reverses all the arguments. They are now stood on their head. That is fine. However, if we were the only one, then ours would be put in charge of the tea-making committee.
Then there is the matter of the tax regime. The international financial system is now very volatile. Certainly, I could not predict what will happen with regard to that particular protection but I would point to the views expressed by Dr. Antoin Murphy of Trinity College Dublin - I referred to them in this House some time ago - that inevitably we would have to face what he described as a kind of blackhole in the Irish economy. I hope that the present regime can be sustained. I will leave it at that.
With regard to neutrality, I have been concerned for a long time about the European armaments group. It has now coyly been renamed the European defence association. I wrote, but at a fairly late stage, to the committee asking that this should be considered, and giving some outline arguments about it. I am not sure that this matter was addressed in any great detail.
In that regard, people have questioned the participation of Mr. Declan Ganley. He is a person of whose illustrious reputation I was completely unaware until the Lisbon Treaty referendum campaign, in which he certainly took a spectacular part.

People wondered why this was the case. My suspicions about the European armaments group were confirmed when Mr. Ganley got involved in the campaign. Why would somebody with apparent connections to the American munitions industry seek to undermine the European Union's attempt to pass the Lisbon treaty? I believe there was a conflict of interest between the American munitions industry and the growth of a centralised munitions industry within the European Union which had the intention of manufacturing arms not only to equip our own forces but also to compete with the powerful military-industrial complex in the United States. For the first time, this group is being incorporated into the architecture of the EU. That is a step too far for me.
In the way it constantly changes its name and elements of its structure, the European armaments group reminds me of the AIDS virus. Our triple lock strategy plays the same role as the triple therapy. The disease remains but it is becoming chronic instead of fatal. It is a cancer at the heart of Europe.
I wish to refer to an excellent series of articles by Dr. Karen Devine, who is a post-doctoral fellow in Dublin City University. She outlined a history of neutrality dating back to Thucydides's account of the Peloponnesian war, which was not a very happy example from our point of view. The island of Melos declared neutrality between Athens and Sparta but the Athenians invaded and massacred the populace of the island. That is a primitive example but for the sake of honesty I have to record facts that are uncomfortable for my case. In 1408, a French king declared neutrality in the disputes between the various popes who sat in Avignon and elsewhere. This was followed in America in the neutrality Act of 1794.
While we have been interested in neutrality for a long time, ours has never been a principled neutrality. Mr. de Valera's neutrality was not at all principled. We all know that he would have sold out if he was given the Six Counties. It happened to be a wise choice but who knows whether it was deliberate given that his mind was opaque? However, the Irish people have a real commitment to neutrality and many of us were offended by the use of Shannon Airport not only for the transport of massive numbers of American troops, which the Government claimed was purely for monetary reasons, but also for the purpose of extraordinary rendition. Neutrality has been the most consistent reason given for voting against the Maastricht, Amsterdam, Nice and Lisbon treaties. I could stomach the earlier treaties but this one has gone too far, particularly when I note the attempt to rebuff this argument by the distinguished Institute of European Affairs and Patrick Keatinge. I am amazed these people have the gall to claim that we bought the concept of common defence when it was first included in the Maastricht treaty in 1992. We raised the issue at the time but were told that our neutrality would not be compromised. Now we are told that we have already signed up to common defence. That is what I mean by incremental militarism.
The best survey, the social and political attitudes survey, found that Irish people understand the term "neutrality" to mean non-involvement in wars, independence, impartiality, non-aggression, the primacy of the UN and UN peacekeeping and not supporting big powers. This is an active concept of neutrality.
Acting Chairman: Senator Norris has one minute remaining.
Senator David Norris: I hope it will be an expansive minute.
Senator Paschal Donohoe: So do we.
Senator David Norris: Fianna Fáil decided to be neutral in the Falklands war in order to get up Margaret Thatcher's nose. That is a policy with which I am in complete sympathy.
The final article by this splendid woman, Dr. Devine, states:
The primacy of the UN and its peacekeeping is eliminated under article 28A(1), as EU missions do not require a UN mandate. The neutrals' proposals for EU missions to require a UN mandate were rejected...
Article 28A(6) provides for permanent, structured co-operation in defence matters, and designates larger states to execute the "most demanding" military acts. Neutral state representatives argued that large state missions going ahead in the name of the EU in the face of objections from smaller states will have little credibility, as they would clearly show that there is no genuine common foreign policy.
These provisions, combined with article 15B/201a on Constructive Abstention, make unanimity as a decision-making rule a non sequitur, while articles 280B, 11(2-3) and 16b, also objected to by neutral states' representatives, eliminate abstaining states' independence in action.
The "anti-militarism" value is affected by article 28A(3) which commits member states to increased military spending and a common arms policy within the article 28D-supported European Defence Agency.
Finally, the military neutrality concept of non-membership of a military alliance is eliminated under the article 49c(7) mutual defence clause that effectively constitutes a new EU military alliance, and the article 188R solidarity clause.
Acting Chairman: I ask Senator Norris to conclude.
Senator David Norris: I will leave the final word to Henry Kissinger, who said: "No foreign policy - no matter how ingenious - has any chance of success if it is born in the minds of a few and carried in the hearts of none." Our position is not quite so extreme. However, my distinguished colleagues, Patrick Keatinge, Peadar Ó Bhroin and Ben Tonra, are anxious about the prospect of achieving Danish status. They claim that as an opt-out country, we will be left on the sidelines and that while we will be able to participate in discussions, will not be able to vote. Their comments echo a French general who came here tell us what to do. The Irish Times of Saturday, 29 November reported General Bentégeat as saying exactly the same thing. That tells us where they are coming from. I will campaign as vigorously as I can against this treaty unless we get an opt-out from participation in the military objectives of the European armaments group, rechristened the European Defence Agency.