A People Before Profit TD has defended his party's decision to boycott yesterday's Oireachtas speech by US President Joe Biden.
Paul Murphy said that since the war in Ukraine, the Government has been pushing for neutrality to be "dismantled" and the visit of Mr Biden has assisted this aim.
Ireland's neutrality had been "hallowed out" over decades, the deputy claimed, and the Government would like to formalise the arrangement.
Speaking on RTÉ's Today with Philip Boucher-Hayes, Mr Murphy said that he found the whole visit "utterly nauseating" due to the approach of media and politicians to it.
There "hasn't been a single critical question asked" of Mr Biden, according to the TD, who described the president as "not a celebrity, interesting Irish-American figure, god or king" but the leader of the most powerful country in the world, "a warmonger and a climate polluter".
Mr Murphy added that he would have liked to have a Dáil debate yesterday on a fair assessment of President Biden as had been done in relation to other world leaders.
PBP was not allowed to speak yesterday, he said, and viewpoints should be heard in the Dáil.
"It's a parliament not a soapbox for the most powerful person in the world to come make a speech, it’s ridiculous."
Ireland should not be facilitating "US imperialism" and its endeavors around the world through Shannon Airport, Deputy Murphy said.
He called for a referendum on neutrality and claimed that since the war in Ukraine, the Government had sped up the process of "getting rid of neutrality".
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Government defends Biden visit
Minister of State Thomas Byrne defended the format of President Biden's address to the Oireachtas in which only he, the ceann comhairle, and the cathaoirleach of the Seanad spoke.
"It was ceremonial. It gave the president an opportunity to speak. The ceann comhairle and the cathaoirleach - nobody else spoke in the parliament and I thought that was a much better format than previous," he told the same programme.
Mr Byrne also denied that the joint embrace this week between President Biden and Ireland made the country's neutrality look "threadbare".
"What Ireland has done over many decades is punch above our weight in various forums because we've had to, because we're small, so to make an impact economically, to make an impact around the world, we've had to punch above our weight.
"We've done that through our connections with the Irish diaspora as one part of it and this is just another example of that."
Mr Byrne rejected suggestions that Ireland had become an "associate member of NATO" and pointed to Mr Biden's quotation of John F Kennedy on his Irish visit 60 years ago.
"If you listen to what President Biden said yesterday - Ireland pursues an independent foreign policy but is not neutral between autocracy and liberty - and quite frankly I'm very happy with that sentence. I'm very comfortable with what he said and I think the vast majority of Irish people would be very comfortable with that as well."
Minister Byrne said that Ireland's role around the world had been "extremely positive" by not being part of NATO, not being part of a military alliance, but absolutely accepting that there are rules there that we comply with "for the betterment of our people".
