Irlanda “disposta ad aiutare” sul piano di mantenimento della pace ucraina, dice Martin

Time to put the big boy pants on and train up the troops for potential large scale involvement in the west of Ukraine. Plenty more equipment would be needed to keep Irish troops safe. Let’s not wait until things get worse to start preparing.

We’ll end up doing EOD on mines etc, we’ve done that in other conflict zones and a better use of the defence forces expertise.

With what?

Lifting bags of cement

I think Martin’s fair enough here. No one in the EU is asking Ireland to lead the charge against Russia.

Getting Ireland to expand our military so we can protect the EU undersea cables in our water, stop hacking of our national institutions like the HSE was, and sending some of our UN peacekeepers to conduct minesweeping (which we’re internationally thought of as quite expert) is a very reasonable request.

Martin’s ruled out being part of a Deterrence Force because that’s effectively ending neutrality and creating a different level of armed forces for abroad. Everything else that’s on the table for us is just getting our head out of the sand.