John Halligan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I want to return to the grey area between peacekeeping and peace enforcement and the difference between the two, which seems to be an issue across the world. If Irish soldiers are protecting a refugee camp and it is attacked, should they open fire, essentially taking military action against the country? Although in nine out of ten situations it is peacekeeping rather than peace enforcement, there is a grey area in which it is unclear whether we would be breaching our neutrality.

Does Dr. Devine think the difficulty with enshrining anything in the Constitution regarding neutrality is not that it would be constrained by EU laws but by international events? There is a view that Ireland should not have stayed neutral during the Second World War. Does she think the view is that we have a right to remain neutral in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan? It appears to be the Government's view and that of countries that have not enshrined their neutrality in law that we cannot foretell what will happen internationally and that there could be some horrific case which the people of the country might say they cannot tolerate and must deal with such as the Second World War. Perhaps we need to concentrate on it. I would value Dr. Devine's view.

The United States was technically at war with the Government of Afghanistan which it had accused of orchestrating terrorist acts against it. Does Dr. Devine agree that we are in breach of neutrality if we take an Afghan citizen and fly him into Ireland on his way to America? We have taken an alleged combatant on an American aircraft that landed at Shannon Airport on the way to America or Guantanamo Bay.