Is it time to join Nato

1) yes

2) yes

3) Abide by EU rules and laws which it does.

4)To ensure that democracy is implemented here.

5) We meet it by the fact democracy is implemented here.

What did those questions have to do with Nato?

Ok so you are happy to take any benefits but with no responsibilities outside of yourself.

Are you a banker because you sound exactly like them from 10 years ago

'Bomb us back to the stone age'?

😁😁 Has a certain logic to it if you go with blanch's scare mongering.

I am not sure I can agree with you on that one, it is not that long ago since a periscope was seen on the Shannon estuary and it definitely wasn’t an Irish sub, if it was the rooskies Shannon airport or Moneypoint could be taken out, this didn’t make national headlines but those who observed it weren’t on whackey backey

People are so out of touch with reality it is actually painful to watch. To suggest that country the size of Ireland can maintain any army, navy, air corps with appropriate equipment to be able to amount to something in case of attack is pure comedy central. In case you forgot we are still repaying loans from our "celtic tiger" times of plenty. Actually we barely maintain to pay interest on those bailout money.

Oh, I nearly forgot that we should also put few billions aside as we may need to create space force in case it will be needed. You know, we should be prepared from attack from outer space too. It may actually come sooner than any future Russian invasion.

Any abandonment of our historic neutrality would be a betrayal of both a guiding principle of our republic and the character of our nation.

But we should be able to spend to have some defensive capability .

Beats begging the British army to save us

The main reason Dev wanted us to remain neutral in WWII was to save the lives of Irish people. From that point of view, the decision was correct.

Since then it has been a defining characteristic of the Republic.

I've never read anything to indicate that subsequent Taoisigh were eager to join NATO. Do you have a source for that? It immediately begs a question for me: then why didn't we?

@markodaly

I thought we were given assurances over our neutrality on the Lisbon treaty revote....just another slight of hand

Anyone championing the 'join NATO' side needs to take a long hard look at the untold destruction that NATO has caused to countries around the world and even in Europe and ask themselves if we really want to align ourselves with that organisation. I must include that I in no way support the Russian invasion of Ukraine in any circumstance or think there is even a shred of justification for their barbaric and callous actions. However if we were under threat from a NATO country would we side with Russia just to be safe? Absolutely we wouldn't. We aren't a threat to anyone, NATO or Russia. If we join NATO then we are immediately a threat to the security of countries that have been historic NATO enemies.

Can we please not throw away our neutrality on a whim. There are other ways of protecting ourselves against foreign influence. A strong identity on the world stage (unwavering Irish neutrality), and massively increasing our radar surveillance and waters patrolling capabilities will do far more good for us here and the world over than us trying to keep up with a NATO military budget. I get that people are emotionally distraught over this invasion. What the Russians are doing is awful and deserves to be condemned. The whole thing is making my blood boil. But cool heads must prevail. We cannot allow ourselves to be dragged into this geopolitical situation and further sow division and increase tensions.

We stand united with the Nations of the world against Russia in condemning this action while also asking for peaceful diplomacy to prevail and prevent further death and destruction.