Dr. Kenneth McDonagh:

I might pass the cybersecurity question over to Professor Cottey, and I will take the easy ones.

On the legal position, the Deputy has highlighted the relevant parts of our Constitution and the Lisbon treaty. In an international legal sense, neutrality, at least in the context of my understanding, has a fairly limited application outside of times when there is active conflict. It really means that there is a formal role in a time of conflict. Article 42 of the Lisbon treaty does have a mutual defence clause and it was activated by France after the Bataclan theatre attack and another set of terrorist attacks there. There was some discussion about the type of response. The language in that clause allows for the support to be non-military. It allows it to be in line with other commitments. If we think of Ireland's commitment to neutrality as meaning non-membership of military alliances, it is compliant with our legal requirements in this respect. One option discussed at the time concerned Irish soldiers serving in a peacekeeping mission relieving French capabilities to allow them to return to and operate in France.

Turning to the Irish constitutional position, it is specifically a defence alliance based on a European Council decision. In theory, therefore, membership of NATO, for example, would not be covered by this mechanism, although it would be a very brave and perhaps foolhardy Government that would decide to pursue that without consulting the people, given what we know of the public support for our traditional policy of military non-alignment.

My own position, and I know there is some discussion about putting some form of definition of "neutrality" into the Constitution, is that if we have learned something from the referendum to repeal the eighth amendment, in particular, it is that putting policy choices into the Constitution on which reasonable people can disagree is not a very good idea. It can create the kind of outcomes we will not necessarily desire as a result. Having this matter dealt with at the Oireachtas level is the appropriate one for making these kinds of decisions.

This brings me to the issue of the triple lock. There is some ambiguity, and this is perhaps a legal point, in the way the triple lock is framed as to whether specifically a UN Security Council resolution is required or if a resolution passed by the UN General Assembly would be sufficient authorisation. This might be a way of thinking about how we deal with the veto players and the five permanent members of the Security Council. I agree, though, that it is certainly worthy of review in an environment where we have a permanent member of the Security Council in clear violation of the UN Charter. Are we really happy to allow this to be an ultimate decider on the kinds of actions we take in support of peace and security and international law globally?

Cybersecurity is not a space on which I have a huge amount of insight. There are several other projects within PESCO that address cybersecurity issues that might be considered. At national level as well, we have directed greater resources in this direction, but it is an ongoing project. I will leave it there and hand over to Professor Cottey.