Irish Government should promote health, education and overseas aid – not useless weapons of war

The justice and peace group Afri have expressed dismay at the revelation that the Irish army plans to spend over €4m on upgrading its air defence missile system. The Army stated that the purpose of the missile system is to “take out enemy aircraft” and elaborated on this unlikely scenario by stating that the missiles in question would “deter hostile actions”.

Extraordinarily, this monumental waste of resources is occurring at the same time as health, education, social welfare and overseas development aid budgets continue to be cut causing intense suffering to some of the most vulnerable people in our society and on our planet.

Afri raises the question as to where the ‘hostile action’ is likely to come from that would require such weapons, suggesting that the real agenda is being set by NATO (towards which Ireland is moving ever closer) with its push towards ‘interoperability’ and aggressive military actions. Where does this fit with Ireland’s traditional neutrality, which has been shown to be strongly supported by Irish people in successive opinion polls? For example, a Red C poll carried out for the Peace and Neutrality Alliance in 2013 showed 78% of people support Irish neutrality, an essential element of which is non-participation in aggressive military alliances and minimal military spending.

Afri calls on the Labour Party in particular to clarify where its priorities lie in terms of such spending. Afri believes that this bizarre decision is representative of why the Labour Party is being wiped out in Government. Labour is clearly not listening to its voters by subscribing to and supporting such obscene choices as spending on missile systems while cutting health, education and overseas development aid.

Release Peace Activist Margaretta D’Arcy

Photograph taken at “Airing Erris: The Media and Shell Corrib” on January 18th in Ceathrú Thaidhg, Co. Mayo in solidarity with jailed peace activist Magaretta D’Arcy. Photo: Dave Donnellan

Friday 17th of January 2014

Department of Justice, 94 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2

Peace activist Margaretta D’Arcy was arrested yesterday and brought to Limerick prison to serve a three month sentence. Ms D’Arcy suffers from Parkinson’s disease and is also being treated for cancer.

She was arrested and charged as a consequence of a peaceful protest against the use of Shannon Airport by US troops on their way to and from their wars in Afghanistan and elsewhere, due to the Irish Governments commitment to active participation and support for the doctrine of perpetual war. She refused to sign a bond to say that she would stay out of unauthorised zones at Shannon Airport.

Please contact Mr. Alan Shatter, Minister for Justice at: minister@justice.ie to seek her release and share this message with your friends.