Dr. Karen Devine:

I return to what Mr. Smyth said. While clearly we disagree, the weight of international legal and academic opinion is on my side. In 2011 I published a paper in a journal entitled, Cooperation and Conflict, in which I recounted in minute detail how Ireland had acceded to the Western European Union, WEU, military alliances Article 5 guarantee because the European Union had decided it wanted to subsume and absorb the WEU military alliance from approximately the 1950s. When we reached the stage of the Maastricht Treaty on the European Union which allowed for an eventual common defence, it was going to be based on absorbing the WEU into the European Union. The merger was due to happen and there is documentation that shows it.

In December 1999 in Helsinki a European Council meeting was held which authorised the merger. The merger was completed once the Article 5 guarantee was inserted into an EU treaty. At the time it was being inserted into the constitution which was being drafted from 2002 to 2004 the Irish Government tried to stop the Article 5 guarantee being cut and pasted wholesale into the constitution which became the Lisbon treaty which amended the two previous treaties, the Treaty on European Union and the EC treaties. Brian Cowen, in a letter to Franco Frattini, Vice President of the European Union at the time, said we could not agree to it. Germany and France had previously tried to have it inserted into the Amsterdam treaty and were foiled because Britain was not in favour. However, by 2002, it was in favour and the three big powers got in a room and discussed what they were going to do about letters from Brian Cowen and the Foreign Ministers of the other neutral states, namely, Austria, Finland and Sweden. The big three powers said the move had always been in the plans and was the completion of the European common defence policy and that they would not allow any dilution of it.

The Article 5 guarantee was transplanted in wholesale. We have signed and ratified the treaty and are obliged under it to provide aid and assistance by all means in our power. The words "military and other" were deleted in order to demilitarise the clause. The line is that we are not obliged, given that there is a further statement in the treaty clause that it does not prejudice the "specific character of the security and defence policy of certain member states". However, the treaty goes on to talk about how NATO member states' desire for NATO primacy is protected, but it does not refer to neutral states. If it were supposed to protect neutral states and neutrality, it would have. The Constitution has no prohibition that protects neutrality and does not mention neutrality. The Seville Declaration, a political statement, states military neutrality is not affected. As I outlined in my presentation, "military neutrality" is whatever the Government decides it means on any given morning. While it used to mean non-membership of a military alliance, now it effectively means membership of a military alliance. It has no legal standing and is just a political and discursive device invented by governments. It does not apply in international relations as a foreign policy phenomenon and Mr. Smyth and I disagree on it.

We should hold a referendum on including neutrality in the Constitution, given that it has been part of so many political parties' agendas and the fact that the Government is violating the law on neutrality through the facilitation of US troops through Shannon Airport on the way to a theatre of war. It would help us to get a better understanding of what neutrality means to the people. As an academic, I can see very clearly through successive opinion polls what it means to them. While there is no question about it, a referendum might help to clarify it. Generally, the Government will not be in favour of it and I do not think it will happen. I can speculate that if Sinn Féin got into government, perhaps it might happen. We will see.

The Chairman has said we have already covered the question of the grey area between peace enforcement and peacekeeping.