I am for neutrality – Ireland simply does not need to get involved in other countries business
We will need people we trust for both sides of this debate. I always feel politicians have an ulterior motive when they try to convince me of something.
Ireland is most valuable as a neutral state, like Switzerland. We don’t have the money or the desire to get involved in other peoples wars. The world needs some small, neutral nations to provide a middle ground between larger belligerents with desires of empire, expansion or land theft.
If that statement wasn’t approved by Government he should resign.
Those who want to enshrine neutrality in our constitution need to explain why they think we took the wrong (non neutral) stance on Ukraine.
Those who don’t want to enshrine it are presumably in favour of no change to our current not-very-neutral status
We have it pretty sweet as it is. Currently our neutrality is whatever we say it is. We define it as suits ourselves on a case by case basis, and the world generally accepts it. We could have supplied Ukraine with those anti tank weapons, and still spun ourselves as neutral if we wanted.
Why rock the boat?
No. I want no part in this.
I’d vote against this. War is abhorrent and send our young boys to get killed won’t solve anything
Good. Love this man
I really dont see the issue at the moment for us, I think the current situation has and is working quite well.
Back in your box midget
It’s time we commit to defending the border nations, and formalise our air defence instead of relying on the Brits to do it as needed for free.
No one thinks we are neutral in any real sense, it’s purely a cost cutting exercise at this point.
President Higgins needs to mind himself.
Fuck that shit
The government says we are “militarily unaligned”. More like “militarily delinquent and expecting others to keep picking up the tab.”
It may be time for a neutrality debate. I think before that there needs to be a defence policy debate.
Looking at this and many many other threads, there’s a vocal subset of the Irish population for whom “neutrality” means “unarmed pacifism”. I think that idea needs to be terminated with extreme prejudice.
Then let’s debate whether we should start trying to be neutral. There’s good arguments for it.
The United Nations should be defending Ukraine. It’s proven to be totally pointless but the idea was that they would stand up to protect against this type of military aggressions and Ireland could assist as part of that.
It shouldn’t be NATO vs Russia when it comes to Ukraine. It should be the Civilised World versus Russia.
So I don’t want to join NATO just to save Ukraine. That leads us down the road of being fully involved in WW3 over some stupid incident.
Any member of government or ceremonial head of state should be removed from office for questioning our neutrality
Hopefully we’ll join a European army and/or NATO.
We seem to have an odd confusion over what is required to be neutral.
Most Irish people seem to think that because we are neutral, we don’t need a proper army, navy or air force and if we did get attacked sure it would be grand because the USA, Brits or EU would then help us. That doesn’t sound like proper neutrality to me.
Arguably as a neutral country we need a larger military budget than others, as we don’t have military allies so we need to be able to defend ourselves.
Look at Switzerland, there’s more guns there than fondue sets cause they know if they’re invaded it’ll be all hands on deck.
20 comments
I’m not going to vote for or against this.
I am for neutrality – Ireland simply does not need to get involved in other countries business
We will need people we trust for both sides of this debate. I always feel politicians have an ulterior motive when they try to convince me of something.
Ireland is most valuable as a neutral state, like Switzerland. We don’t have the money or the desire to get involved in other peoples wars. The world needs some small, neutral nations to provide a middle ground between larger belligerents with desires of empire, expansion or land theft.
If that statement wasn’t approved by Government he should resign.
Those who want to enshrine neutrality in our constitution need to explain why they think we took the wrong (non neutral) stance on Ukraine.
Those who don’t want to enshrine it are presumably in favour of no change to our current not-very-neutral status
We have it pretty sweet as it is. Currently our neutrality is whatever we say it is. We define it as suits ourselves on a case by case basis, and the world generally accepts it. We could have supplied Ukraine with those anti tank weapons, and still spun ourselves as neutral if we wanted.
Why rock the boat?
No. I want no part in this.
I’d vote against this. War is abhorrent and send our young boys to get killed won’t solve anything
Good. Love this man
I really dont see the issue at the moment for us, I think the current situation has and is working quite well.
Back in your box midget
It’s time we commit to defending the border nations, and formalise our air defence instead of relying on the Brits to do it as needed for free.
No one thinks we are neutral in any real sense, it’s purely a cost cutting exercise at this point.
President Higgins needs to mind himself.
Fuck that shit
The government says we are “militarily unaligned”. More like “militarily delinquent and expecting others to keep picking up the tab.”
It may be time for a neutrality debate. I think before that there needs to be a defence policy debate.
Looking at this and many many other threads, there’s a vocal subset of the Irish population for whom “neutrality” means “unarmed pacifism”. I think that idea needs to be terminated with extreme prejudice.
Then let’s debate whether we should start trying to be neutral. There’s good arguments for it.
The United Nations should be defending Ukraine. It’s proven to be totally pointless but the idea was that they would stand up to protect against this type of military aggressions and Ireland could assist as part of that.
It shouldn’t be NATO vs Russia when it comes to Ukraine. It should be the Civilised World versus Russia.
So I don’t want to join NATO just to save Ukraine. That leads us down the road of being fully involved in WW3 over some stupid incident.
Any member of government or ceremonial head of state should be removed from office for questioning our neutrality
Hopefully we’ll join a European army and/or NATO.
We seem to have an odd confusion over what is required to be neutral.
Most Irish people seem to think that because we are neutral, we don’t need a proper army, navy or air force and if we did get attacked sure it would be grand because the USA, Brits or EU would then help us. That doesn’t sound like proper neutrality to me.
Arguably as a neutral country we need a larger military budget than others, as we don’t have military allies so we need to be able to defend ourselves.
Look at Switzerland, there’s more guns there than fondue sets cause they know if they’re invaded it’ll be all hands on deck.