On Wednesday 21 October, the Dáil voted 79 to 71 to advance the Defence (Amendment) Bill 2016 to committee stage. 15 Government TDs and 9 Opposition TDs did not vote. There were no abstentions. This would suggest that the Government had pairings with 9 Opposition TDs and had 6 rebels without an alternate. In terms of next steps, this means we need to turn 5 more Government TDs to stop the final vote to bin the Triple Lock. The vote could take place this side of the Xmas break.
The Opposition were well organised to counter the false narratives coming from the Government during the debate on the bill. The Government has lost the argument; now we need to make up the numbers to defeat the bill.
The leadership in Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have been given a task by their masters in Washington, London and Brussels. If the Triple Lock goes, countless working-class sons and daughters will be coming home maimed or in body bags from senseless illegal wars. A price FF and FG seem willing to pay for pats from their masters and the gifts of the revolving-door industry.
Under the terms of the Triple Lock, the Irish Defence Forces cannot be deployed to a mission that lacks a UN mandate. If more than 12 Irish Defence Forces personnel are deployed on overseas missions, they need approval by the Government Cabinet and Dáil Éireann, and there must be a UN mandate.
If the legislation being pushed to destroy the Triple Lock passes, the Government will be able to send 100 Irish Defence Forces personnel to any illegal war-fighting mission in the world without even a vote in the Dáil. This is the gravity of what the Government is attempting to do.
The day before the Dáil debate took place, Micheál Martin was beside himself in the Dáil, shouting about how the Triple Lock must go because of the Russian veto on Irish peacekeeping deployments. This is a stark contrast to his statement on the floor of the Dáil in 2013 that the Triple Lock was the core of Irish neutrality. What has changed? There has been no Russian veto since 2013. In fact, there has not been a Russian veto of a UN peacekeeping mission since the formation of the Russian Federation.
The level of disinformation coming from the Government parties is a testament to how desperate they are. There are no good arguments to bin the Triple Lock, so they routinely tell lies.
During a discussion of the Triple Lock on Today with David McCullagh on Tuesday 20 October, Billy Kelleher MEP claimed that Ireland had been blocked from participating in an EU mission in Macedonia in 2003 because the Russian Federation insisted that the mission not go ahead. This is not true. Operation Concordia was an EU-led multinational mission in Macedonia in 2003. It was endorsed by UN Security Council Resolution 1371 (2001), which was adopted unanimously.
Ireland did not participate in Operation Concordia because, despite the endorsement by the Security Council, the mission did not satisfy the legal requirement for deploying Irish troops, which specifies that the mission must be “established” by the UN.
Due to these false claims from FF, the public are now under the impression that the Russian Federation interferes in peacekeeping missions, something it has never done.
If we step outside the UN mandate system, the reality is that the EU and NATO will be dictating where we deploy. We will be fighting alongside the same forces that have just orchestrated, armed and run political cover for the genocide in Gaza, the illegal bombing of Iran, the Israeli attacks on and occupation of Lebanon, and have kept the brutal war in Ukraine going for years to bleed Russia at the cost of generations of working-class Ukrainian men.
If the Triple Lock goes, the first mission we will deploy to will be the EU mission to Lebanon. This is not a peacekeeping mission; the EU has no authority to initiate a peacekeeping mission. The EU supports Israel while it carries out genocide in Gaza; it supports Israel’s ethnic cleansing and occupation of Lebanon. At worst, the EU will help precipitate a civil war; at the very least, we will again be materially complicit in assisting the genocidal Israeli state as it expands its terror and destruction beyond its borders.
Both the Nice and Lisbon Treaties were defeated in national referendums partly due to fears among the Irish public that they would undermine Irish neutrality. On each occasion when we were asked again to accept these treaties, we were assured that the Triple Lock system that has been in place since 1960 would be protected if we accepted the treaties.
The Government is breaking the promises made without going back to the people. They are attempting to do exactly what we feared they would: get us embroiled in EU and NATO militarism and destroy our legacy of neutrality and UN peacekeeping.
They won’t go back to the people because they know they would not win a referendum on abolishing Irish neutrality.
This is a perilous time in world history. The US and NATO are throwing the world into chaos in a desperate attempt to preserve the flailing US-led imperialist order. In this system, the EU is but a cog in the NATO machine that is being manoeuvred towards endless war.
The EU has lost the run of itself completely. It has backed genocide. It has decimated its own economy for a failing and unwinnable war in Ukraine that it is desperate to keep going. It has embraced runaway militarisation at the cost of every social good in preparation for more war.
At this time in history, we are blessed to be a neutral state; we are fortunate to have the Triple Lock mechanism that has kept the Irish Defence Forces out of illegal wars like the Iraq War since 1960.
There is no democratic mandate to end Irish neutrality. We must stop the Government from gutting the Triple Lock. If not, we will be fighting alongside the genocidal and fascist NATO powers as they bring the world further into chaos.
Ring the Government TDs and tell them you will know who to hold responsible when the dead and maimed start coming home from imperialist wars. Raise this issue with your friends and family, in your unions and workplace. Take to the streets to defend Irish neutrality.
WE MUST SAVE THE TRIPLE LOCK.
