John Halligan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

My second question leads to the first one I asked. There are so many definitions of neutrality under international law that it becomes irrelevant in the sense that a country defines its own neutrality by how the people choose. As Deputy Boyd Barrett has said, there was overwhelming opposition to the Iraq war, yet we are complicit in assisting one country to bomb parts of Iraq, or send troops and weapons there.

I think Dr. Devine said either that neutrality cannot be defined under international law or that it is not accepted. I do not know but I would imagine that neutrality is self-defined within the nation that wants to become neutral and not take part in a conflict.

I want to come back to Mr. Smyth. There is an absolute difference between a peace initiative and taking part in preventing conflict, and taking part in a conflict or helping that conflict by supplying weapons or rhetoric. The Irish people are quite clear if they decide, believe and agree with Irish troops being sent as peacekeepers to some area where the confrontation may have stopped for a period. They are there to see that it does not recur.

All of this essentially comes back to how we participate, and have participated, in helping the Americans both in Iraq and Afghanistan. Regardless of whether we like it, it is inconceivable to think that many troops that flew from Ireland to Afghanistan and Iraq have not taken part in some sort of war effort, either by firing their weapons or bombing.

It comes back to my point about two countries at war with one in the middle. If one of the ones at war asks to fly into the country in the middle because it wants to bomb the other country, that country is not neutral if it allows that. That is my opinion and the opinion of many hundreds of thousands of people.