Military Neutrality
Dail Éireann — 2026-06-09
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Helen McEntee (FG), Meath East

I propose to take Questions Nos.132 and 133 together. I am pleased to discuss this issue and to expand on some of the areas that we have elaborated on. This key legislation is a priority for me and this Government but it is important that we have an opportunity in the House not just here during Parliamentary Questions but through the legislative process to debate certain elements of this Bill. There have been a number of calls for a public plebiscite or a referendum in relation to what is being proposed in the Bill with regards to the triple lock. Again, I highlight the fact that there has been a lot of conflation as to what is actually being proposed and what is actually being suggested. The triple lock is a statutory mechanism. It is set out in the Defence (Amendment) Act 1960. It is not a constitutional mechanism and is not enshrined in our Constitution. It was a political commitment during the Nice and Lisbon treaties process. It is clear, therefore, that as I and my predecessors have stated a number of times on the floor of the House and as I have stated a number of times this evening, amending the legislation that governs how we deploy our Defence Forces overseas does not require a referendum. It does not require a national plebiscite.
We are talking about a very different time when the legislation was developed. The world has changed. The UN structure itself has changed since. It is not working. We can accept that. We all know that it is not working in the way that it should. The geopolitical environment has changed as well. We now find ourselves in a situation where one in five of the permanent members of the Security Council can decide whether or not our Irish troops can travel to engage in peacekeeping missions, be it in Lebanon, the western Balkans, the Mediterranean or any other part of the world. It is simply not acceptable to have a situation where Ireland's sovereign decision-making with regards to the participation of our peacekeeping troops in peace operations can be impacted by the geopolitical interests of other states. That is exactly what is happening. I repeat that in the past two weeks alone, our troops have had to come home from a mission on which they have been working for a number of years now and where they have been held in such high regard by their fellow defence force members and the Mediterranean Operation Irini because the UN mandate has not been renewed. This is what we are talking about. We are not talking about going off to war anywhere. We are talking about peacekeeping missions.
We are very clear that our neutrality is to be protected. We are very clear as a Government that this is not what is being impacted here. As I mentioned earlier, it has been demonstrated in a real tangible way as well through the UN Security Council resolution that underpinned the EU mission Operation Irini, which has come to an end for Irish troops but for nobody else that has been involved in that overall. We also know that this clearly illustrates the extent to which Ireland's ability to contribute to international peace and security efforts can be affected by factors outside of our control. That situation is not sustainable if we are to retain a meaningful and credible capacity to participate in international peace support operations in line with our values and I think this is in line with our own interests and the democratic will of the people of Ireland who have entrusted us as their representative. There has been extensive engagement between my Department and the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel about the drafting of the Bill and it is my intention to bring this to the House. It was approved by Cabinet today that we would bring it forward for Second Stage to debate this even further and to have a wider debate with colleagues as soon as possible.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-06-09/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:05+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-09