Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

The war on neutrality we are seeing in this country forms part of a wider process of European militarisation that is seen in the applications of Sweden and Finland to join NATO and in the unprecedented increase in military expenditure right across the European Union where in 2022 the announced increase in military expenditure was bigger than total EU military expenditure across all the member states in 2020. That is the increase alone. That is a huge drive towards war, militarisation and towards eradicating any form of neutrality.

In this country it is clear that after the sham consultative forums, what is in the sights of the Government and political establishment is the triple lock. They would have people believe that this is a response to Putin's horrendous invasion of Ukraine and that it is now obvious of course that we have to get rid of the triple lock. They would have people believe that this has nothing to do with the question of neutrality, that we will just get rid of the triple lock and neutrality is a completely separate question. The truth is very far from that. It is important to put on the record that the Fine Gael position 20 years ago was to get rid of the triple lock. In a policy paper called Beyond Neutrality it described the triple lock as a political straightjacket and said it should go. This is a longstanding policy of Fine Gael and now it sees the opportunity to get rid of it. Why? Because it wants a free hand to send troops wherever it wants. If it was not for the triple lock, not only would we have disgracefully aided and abetted US imperialism in its adventures in the Middle East for which hundreds of thousands of people paid with their lives through the use of Shannon Airport but Irish troops could have been sent abroad. The hawkish position says to get rid of the triple lock entirely and have a so-called double lock, which is no lock at all. It would comprise the Government and the Dáil, in which the Government would have a majority. The position of Deputy Eamon Ryan and the Green Party is to have an EU lock. The EU lock would also be no lock at all. One may as well ask NATO or US imperialism as to get the permission of the EU to engage in military action.

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