Neutrality and Triple Lock: Motion [Private Members]
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-16
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Joanna Byrne (SF), Louth

Ireland has lost 88 personnel from the Irish Defence Forces while serving on UN peacekeeping missions since 1958. Among other places, they went to Congo, Cyprus, and, most famously, Lebanon. They all went wearing the blue beret to protect civilians and to preserve peace. They went assured they were upholding international law and in service of the rules-based order. They did not go as part of wars of aggression. They went with a clear mission statement and clear guidelines: to protect the people and to protect the peace. I am very proud of my own godson, Seán, who has just returned this summer from his own stint in Lebanon.
The age of countries formally declaring war on each other is long gone. Putin's special military operation is heading towards its fifth year. The USA never officially declared war on Iraq or Afghanistan but it invaded, killed, occupied for decades and then withdrew. Where there are no clear and definitive laws like the triple lock that must be followed and have the backing of the people, spurious reasons and lies can be used to deploy troops abroad in wars of aggression. The evidence of this is in the tens of thousands of dead Ukrainians, Iraqis and Afghanis. This country does not want to be part of any bloc, be it NATO in the West or the Russian sphere of influence in the East that launched these wars. Ireland and the Irish people want this country to remain militarily neutral. If the Minister does not believe that to be the case, as has been said here many times this evening, she should let the people have a referendum to decide because Irish neutrality belongs to the Irish people. She should stop making vague, ambiguous statements about military threats she thinks this country faces. She should state it clearly and address it here. It would serve her better to invest in our Defence Forces and our Defence Forces personnel to ensure they have the numbers, training and equipment to defend this country and to play their part in UN-mandated peacekeeping operations as they have for decades. She should not push Ireland to join the teams of military alliances that do not respect international law or rules-based order because that is where she is trying to drag this country. I urge her to support this motion to protect our neutrality and to safeguard the triple lock. In a world of Ed Sheerans, be a Macklemore; put humanity and peace ahead of war.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-09-16/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:48+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-09-16