Joining NATO would not make sense - Tóibín

Ireland should be using its neutrality to put pressure on Russia to de-escalate its actions in Ukraine rather than considering joining NATO, according to Deputy Peadar Tóibín.

Speaking in the Dail this week, Deputy Tóibin said that historically military blocs are dominated by large countries and "have orientated their military actions to their economic objectives”.

“Small countries have very little influence on the decisions of large military blocs. If the State aligns itself with a large military bloc, there is no doubt that our young men and women will be involved in their military actions, but we will have precious little influence over the decisions on those military actions.”

Deputy Tóibín also claimed that the current debate has highlighted that there is “ a militaristic instinct within Fine Gael”

“We saw many of the party's deputies come out in favour of NATO involvement and also in favour of increased militarism in this State. It is in sharp contrast to the fact that we have Naval Service patrol ships tied up right now in our ports. The EU is investigating Ireland's inability to patrol its own waters. We had to rely on an EU patrol boat for the first time to patrol our waters. Cybersecurity is brought up on a regular basis. If we were serious about this, we would invest in our own defences. Two years ago, the National Cyber Security Centre had a budget of €5 million. The PR spend for the Department of the Taoiseach in the same year was €15 million. One department spent three times the amount of money on PR than the country spent on its National Cyber Security Centre, which as a result, has cost us approximately €100 million.

“There is a necessity for Ireland to be active. We need active neutrality. We have a competency built up from years of peacekeeping, anti-colonialism and working against nuclear proliferation and from the fact that missionaries have left this country to help the developing world to develop. As a result, the Irish passport opens doors and minds across the world. We should be using our neutrality, in an active sense, to put pressure on Russia to de-escalate. People might say we would have no influence in that regard, yet how come the Israeli Prime Minister can ring up Vladimir Putin and make an effort at de-escalation? How come President Macron can do that? Why have we outsourced so much of our foreign affairs actions to the European Union? We are reducing our own sovereignty in the name of protecting Ukraine's sovereignty and that does not make sense,” he said.