Neutrality and Triple Lock: Motion [Private Members] Dail Éireann — 2026-09-16 ============================================================ Peadar Tóibín (AON), Meath West Ireland has had a proud history of neutrality for many long years. A record built on our own peace process, the missionaries who helped build hospitals and schools around the world, our role as a UN peacekeeping country, our campaign for nuclear non-proliferation, and our support for decolonisation across the world gives us, internationally, a recognised reputation as an honest broker. That is very hard to achieve and it is also a very unique reputation. Our history of neutrality goes back many years, as has been mentioned - back to Wolfe Tone, Daniel O'Connell and James Connolly. They all advocated neutrality to strengthen Irish independence and self-determination and also to prevent militarism. We should be using that reputation as a catalyst for peace. We should be actively neutral and courageous in our non-aggressive engagement around the world. Look at Norway, for example. Norway created the Oslo peace accord. It used its position in such a manner as to bring two warring factions to the table to see if they could create peace. Small countries have long been sceptical of military blocs. Military blocs develop their military actions just to advance their own national interests and economic objectives. When a small country joins a military bloc, it usually has very little say over the decisions that are made by that military bloc, yet it has to populate those armies with its young men and women. So, too, would it be with Ireland if we joined a military bloc. We would have to send our children to wars and we would have very little say over the development of those wars. It is important to remember as well that in world affairs, war is often packaged as peace. "Peace" is often a euphemism. Some 600,000 people were killed in the Iraq war in the name of peace. The US war in Iraq was a perfect example of this. The whole issue with war is that the first casualty of it is often the truth. I am old enough to remember the statements of the American Government that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. On that basis, that country went to war with Iraq and it led to the destruction of hundreds of thousands of lives and decades of damaging instability in the region. Every week, we hear of a drone incursion in some part of the EU. Every week, we are told it is believed that Russia is behind those drone incursions but we are never given any evidence of this. It may well be the case that Russia is behind those actions but one thing we have learned from Iraq is that if we are to make decisions on policy, those decisions should be made on evidence, yet the Government has provided no evidence. In fact, I will show the actions of the EU. In 2022, serious explosions damaged the Nord Stream pipeline, causing gas leaks into the Baltic Sea. The EU leadership was very strong in pointing its finger at Russia in regard to that. Today, the investigations have led to the arrests of a number of Ukrainian operatives in relation to it. That highlights even more the necessity for evidence to be used as the basis for policy. The EU war drums are getting louder. The EU hawks are currently beating the war drums and the Government is very happy to dance to their particular tune. In relation to our own defences, two weeks ago, I think we witnessed one of the lowest points of this Government with regard to defence. I ask Deputies to picture this for a second: the Minister talking tough on defence, while at the same time, a Royal Navy ship and helicopters were used to provide security for the EU ministers' meeting she was having. It is incredible. You could not better juxtapose two images that spoke more about the fact that this Government has done nothing to protect this country in regard to our military over the past while. If the Minister put a beret on, she would have appeared like Comical Ali - a situation where she was talking tough on defence but depending on another country to provide military support to defend this country. If the Government had any self-awareness, it would have been mortified by that situation, but it does not. When Fine Gael came to power in 2011, the strength of the Irish Defence Forces was 9,650. It is now 7,767. The navy had eight functional ships; now it has fewer than four. Fine Gael is the biggest threat to Irish security by far. Unless we get serious about it, this Government is in big danger of leading to our security being breached. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. 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