Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2026-03-03
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Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central

Ireland believes fundamentally in international rule of law. We are a multilateral nation and all our work over the past number of years has been dedicated to those principles in every single form that we attend under the auspices of the United Nations, the European Union or, indeed, other international organisations. International law is not being adhered to and has not been for quite some time by many actors. That is the reality. Prime Minister Carney called that out in Davos and described the reality of the international world order as we see it today. The House is agreed on the brutality of the Iranian regime but if we are all honest, one would not have thought that for the past three years because there was rarely a debate in here about Iran. There was barely a motion here about the malign views of Iran. I think someone on the backbenches here raised it. It might have been the Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan, some years ago, who put a formal position here on the Iranian regime. There was a studied silence here. The Deputy can accuse me of this, that and the other but on the Opposition side, there was a one-directional approach to the international order. At times, even the Russian aggression is condemned and put aside in a formulaic way.
We are very clear. First, I condemn the killing of children anywhere in any situation. Children and innocent civilians must always be prioritised, without question. One of the big challenges for the UN is that we are similar to where we were prior to the demise of the League of Nations. There is a serious issue in the world. It is dangerous, without question. There is an absence of an international rules-based order right now. Of that, there is no question. It is dangerous for small nations like Ireland which depend on an international rules-based order for our security because we are not a military nation. We do not have military power. We are fundamentally a peacekeeping nation. That is our orientation and that has been our contribution, as well as humanitarian aid to many troubled spots in the world. We have contributed Irish personnel to conflict resolution all over the world. We have done it in Mozambique, Colombia and elsewhere. That is our contribution and to try to characterise the Irish position as anything else is disingenuous. That is how we perform on an international level.
We also realise the limits of what we can do globally and internationally. We are clear that the only sustainable way forward, which will require the world to engage collectively, is a proper international rules-based order that can also deal effectively with rogue and oppressive regimes, which it has failed to deal with for three or four decades.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-03-03/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:02+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-03-03