Pat Rabbitte

It's obvious that we're living in a different geopolitical arrangement than we have enjoyed since the Second World War, and we must cut our cloth to measure.

Having said that...

I think the people who are bringing these issues to the public domain oughtn't to exaggerate what the state is capable of doing.

If you look at the defense budget in the last occasion, it was roughly one and a half billion.

That's roughly a quarter percent of national income.

If we were to increase that, say, to 2%, not to mention Trump's 5%, but it would be eight times one and a half billion every year, not once off, every year.

Now, that has manifest economic, budgetary, fiscal implications that are not being discussed at all.

I make the point because it's not in the debate, not because I think that we shouldn't do everything that we can afford to do to protect our critical infrastructure and so on.

So should we be increasing those resources?

Yes, we should.

But at what rate we should be increasing the resources is where the debate should happen.

And it isn't happening.

I mean, it's the...

The new security measures that are being advocated that are the subject of debate, not our economic capacity to rapidly ramp up our provision.

Well, what happened in Belfast was clearly the work of a racist mob.

And, I mean, that needs to be said because what happened was an awful crime that

But it doesn't justify what happened thereafter.

And, you know, the mealy-mouthed commentary of some politicians really must be called out.

Stuff about alien cultures and a porous border and the free travel area and all of this.

I mean...