Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Irish neutrality is a strength. It underpins our contribution to peacekeeping and diplomacy and allows Ireland to play a positive and constructive role in conflict resolution. We should be proud to say that Irish neutrality is a strength. Others have attempted to portray neutrality as a weakness. I put on the record of the House that it absolutely is not.

Fine Gael has always been among that cohort. Twenty years ago it produced a playbook on what it called moving beyond neutrality which sets out a series of steps and now Fianna Fáil, which no longer stands for anything at all, is following that playbook to the letter. The central aspect of the playbook was removing the triple lock neutrality protection. The second part was to narrow the definition of neutrality until it became virtually meaningless. We saw that again today when the Tánaiste described neutrality as essentially not participating in a military alliance or common defence pact. When I asked him recently at a committee meeting whether anything below that mark would breach neutrality, he said every single action a government would take that did not include being part of a military alliance or common defence pact would be in line with his definition of neutrality. That means that any Irish Government, without the triple lock, could send troops to any part of the world, such as Iraq, Afghanistan or Ukraine, without a UN mandate and a Minister could come before this House and claim he or she was being neutral. That does not fit the definition of what anyone would describe as neutrality.

What I find to be the most dishonest part is that we are told that this move is being made in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine but the Tánaiste has not had the guts or honesty to say where precisely he wants to send Irish troops to that they are currently debarred from going. That definition of neutrality is not what the Irish people understand. Indeed, it is not even what the Minister's Department understands. The Department set out a definition of the policy of military neutrality and it is much more elaborate than that narrow focus. It goes further. It gives reading material. It says Ireland's neutrality is well understood by EU partners and is codified by the protocol to the Lisbon treaty. What does the codification in the Lisbon treaty say? It says, helpfully, that participation of the Irish Defence Forces in overseas missions will be carried out with the authorisation of the United Nations. The triple lock is codified. Where did that codification come from? It came from the first rejection by the Irish people of the Lisbon treaty. To get democratic legitimacy for the Lisbon treaty on the second attempt, the Government had to find a route, which was the triple lock. The triple lock provided the democratic basis on which our current membership of the European Union stands and any attempt to withdraw or remove that without recourse to the Irish people is undemocratic in the extreme.

The Tánaiste has some nerve to talk about honesty, democracy and Russian vetoes. Vladimir Putin is not the reason that Irish troops are not participating in one of the most important UN peacekeeping missions in the world that is taking place in the Golan Heights. That is not Putin's doing. It is Micheál Martin's doing. He removed our troops from that peacekeeping mission. He has some nerve to suggest, as I read in the newspapers last week, that the triple lock is what has been preventing the Naval Service from participating in international drug smuggling operations. We cannot send our naval vessels to the Irish seas at this point in time because we do not have the resources and troops within the Defence Forces to do so because Fianna Fáil has overseen the decimation of our Defence Forces. Membership is at record low numbers. More people have left the Defence Forces than have joined every year since Micheál Martin came to office. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael between them have decimated our Defence Forces and now they seek to decimate our neutrality. I do not believe the Irish people will allow them to do so.

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