Senator Gerard Craughwell- speech from 22 Mar 2022

Goera Magat, Lasko Heerlich. Deputy Leader, you'll be aware of the fact that I wrote to all members of the House yesterday regarding the need for a debate on Ireland's status, whether we're neutral, military, non-aligned or military-aligned. I think it's time that that debate took place. I appreciate that it's not the best time to have a debate on that issue in the middle of a worldwide crisis in Ukraine. I was rather disappointed to see one of our colleagues in the other House bring forward legislation which they hope to bring into the Dáil in the next few days on the neutrality issue. I don't think it's the way forward. I think there's a need for a discussion. I think we need to consider carefully where we go with this. For too long the issue has been bandied about as neutral, non-neutral and all sorts of other things. But I do think that we're moving into a situation here by default where statements are being made by government ministers and indeed by the Taoiseach which has moved Ireland's policy position from where it was to a new position of non-aligned and in fact the words non-neutral have been used. It's no secret that I actually want to send weapons to the Ukraine. So my position may not necessarily fall into the neutral camp but certainly the debate has to take place. The people are entitled to hear that debate taking place. I'm mindful of a period when I was president of the TUI and I made a statement and one of my executive members said, who the hell gave you the permission to say that? This house is the house that makes decisions about how we progress the neutrality issue. Now, the second issue I want to raise today is the government very generously brought forward a payment for those who were frontline workers during the pandemic. We missed out on people, people who worked in organisations like Ability West down in County Galway where staff came in every day to deal with people with disabilities of one type or another and had to deal with all of the same frontline issues as nurses in hospitals had to deal with and as other frontline workers had to deal with. So I think we might try and have a debate on that at some stage in the future to look at what other organisations are entitled to be considered for that frontline payment because they did put themselves at risk every single day when they went in dealing with people coming in for risk price. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.