Aontú Leader Peadar Tóibín has criticised the EU for withholding fiscal flexibility on housing homeless people while providing fiscal flexibility for member states to spend a €150 billion loan through the new SAFE instrument. An Teachta Tóibín stated:
“The EU is currently being driven by hawks. Ursula Von der Leyen has a stated aim of creating a EU Defence Union. The financial foundation of that defence union has been created today with the launch of the SAFE instrument. The genesis of this plan comes from the EU Heads of State or Government meeting in Versailles in March 2022 where it was decided to “bolster European defence capabilities”. This is part of the broader REARM Europe Plan.
After funding together the EU plan is to procure together. Member States are to “spend more, better, together and European” on defence. This plan by default means the alignment and synchronisation of funding, procurement and budget levels when it comes to defence. SAFE is a halfway house to a EU Defence Union. EU countries will fund and procure military hardware together. All that is left to synchronise is the use of the military hardware.
Given that Ireland is in the middle of the worst housing crisis in the history of the state it is exceptional that we are being given fiscal flexibility for the Stability and Growth Pact to buy air and missile defence, artillery systems, missiles and ammunition, drones and anti-drone systems, strategic enablers and critical infrastructure protection, including in relation to space, cyber, artificial intelligence and electronic warfare, and military mobility, but not to build homes.
Ireland is being encouraged to go into debt to buy bombs but not build homes. Its clear that the Irish government are not leading this budgetary agenda but is outsourcing it to its “betters” in Brussels. Ireland has very different needs to much of the rest of Europe. We need investment tailored to our needs, not Brussels.
