Military Neutrality
Dail Éireann — 2024-07-02
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Réada Cronin (SF), Kildare North

It is our independent foreign policy, a legacy of Ireland working for a nuclear non-proliferation, humanitarianism, contributing to the drafting of the convention of human rights and fundamental freedoms, peacekeeping and our proud record as our United Nations peacekeepers in Lebanon, Congo, Chad, South Sudan and elsewhere. Yet eight months ago, the Minister instructed officials to prepare legislation to remove that cornerstone without delay and did that with no mandate, having campaigned on this at the general election and agreeing to a programme for Government that would keep the triple lock. Even the chair of the consultative forum the Minister held last year put in her report that there was no public appetite for a change on our position of neutrality and no appetite to change the triple lock. I spoke to the Minister earlier at the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence when he said that he hoped to bring draft legislation forward in the next two weeks.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2024-07-02/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:53:08+00:00
Sitting date: 2024-07-02