Ms Bernie Maguire:

I thank the Deputy. Regarding the question of neutrality, if we look back to the genesis of the 1960 legislation, we can see it was put in place following a request from the UN Secretary General for Ireland to deploy troops to the Congo. We had no legislative basis to do that. It would always at that time have been a UN mission. There was no other show in town, as such. It was always going to be a UN mission and it was always going to have Government approval. Additionally, there was the Dáil safeguard if we were deploying more than 12 troops. That is the genesis of how this legislation came about in the first place. The issue of neutrality was not a part of that discussion. We define our neutrality as non-military. We are not militarily aligned and we do not join any military alliance such as NATO or anything else. To us, this is where there is the disconnect between neutrality and what we are trying to do in this Bill.

Turning to the question on the UN Security Council and if there is another UN mechanism, we spoke earlier during the interaction with Deputy Stanley in relation to the role of the UN General Assembly. It does have a power to recommend a particular action. It has not been used since the 1960s. I think that was the last time it was used. It is not enforceable and has no legal basis. Only the Security Council mandate can force countries to implement a decision.

On where the triple lock has caused obstacles, there are practical examples now with regard to our current continuation in some missions. These include Operation Irini. The mandate for that mission is being discussed today in the UN. There are challenges concerning whether it will be renewed. Many negotiations are going on in the background to get the approval of those countries that have indicated they are not going to support it. This is a real-life example happening today. If that mandate is not renewed, the four personnel we have deployed as part of Operation Irini will be coming home. That is just a practical example. There are also challenges regarding other missions. The UNIFIL mandate is also going to be difficult this year. Again, many negotiations are going on. France is the main negotiator on behalf of the UN. We have also had difficulties with Operation Althea, where it was in the past indicated that one of the members of the Security Council was not going to approve it. These examples have real-life impacts. If we did not have a UN mandate for those operations, we would have to withdraw.