Defence Forces
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-17
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Thomas Byrne (FF), Meath East

I will answer this one on behalf of the Minister. As the Minister has already set out, the defence (amendment) Bill is included in the Government legislative programme for priority publication. There are also some other amendments to the Defence Acts in the legislation. What the triple lock legislation or the defence (amendment) Bill will do is remove the requirement for the UN Security Council mandate because, quite frankly, it is almost impossible to get one and we do not know what the UN Security Council will say in terms of renewing peacekeeping mandates. Effectively, by keeping this in place, we allow members of the Security Council a veto. There are five permanent members, and each of them has a veto. That is Russia, China, France, the UK and the USA. They can veto or use the threat of a veto. In fact, as the Minister said, we have seen UNIFIL end because of, essentially, one member of the Security Council.
It is not possible either to go to the General Assembly. What is being suggested regarding the General Assembly cannot happen because it does not have responsibility for international peace and security. In any event, what Deputy Crowe is asking for is not just to give a veto to five members of the Security Council but to canvass every country on earth, including Israel and other countries, on whether Ireland can send peacekeeping troops into areas where they are required. This is something that really is untenable. We are a neutral country. We send peacekeepers. We will send them in accordance with UN law, human rights law and the honourable tradition that we have, but we will not continue in a situation where individual countries can veto our decisions of the Dáil. I should say as well that there is no suggestion that this removes our neutrality in any way whatsoever. Nothing changes the protocol to the Lisbon treaty. There is nothing in the legislation that can or will affect the protocols of the Lisbon treaty on neutrality.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-17/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:38+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-17