Professor Ray Murphy:

I thank the Senator for the series of questions. It might surprise him that I agree with him that, in terms of international law, we do not fulfil the obligations of a formally neutral state. At the same time, I would argue it has been Government policy that we are militarily neutral or militarily non-aligned. It is the prerogative of every sovereign state to decide on its own policies. They do not have to meet some kind of international definition.

I consider that we have compromised our military neutrality by very close arrangements with NATO, the Partnership for Peace and so on. I think the removal of the triple lock is very significant because, essentially, it will remove something that has been in place for decades, from the very beginning. This was discussed in great detail in the Dáil back in the 1950s and 1960s. We are removing the requirement for the UN to approve and give legitimacy to Ireland's participation in an international force abroad. By doing so, we are joining all of those states that we are critical of, and that are rendering the United Nations dysfunctional, because we are agreeing to do something which bypasses the UN instead of working to make the UN more effective, and trying to bring the parties - the major powers and others - to use the UN as the forum it was intended to be.

A lot of the Senator's other questions follow on from whether Ireland is neutral or not. If we look at the voting record of Ireland over many years at the United Nations, especially in the early years, it was very much in favour of the so-called West. I do not believe we are neutral in that sense. Our joining the European Union clearly established a pro-European position. I understood the European Union to have been, in the early days, based on economic prosperity and co-operation, but also on something that was motivated after the Second World War as a peace project. I am afraid the European Union is betraying its early values. I am slightly wandering now but the Senator’s question was a very broad one and I am trying to answer some of the issues. If we look at the preamble in Articles 2 and 3 of the Treaty on European Union, most recently updated by the Lisbon treaty, it talks about certain values, such as human rights, the rule of law, the peaceful resolution of disputes and a whole range of things. If we permit our forces to be part of a European Union stand-alone force, I do not have confidence in our European partners to adhere to the values that are set out in that treaty.

I would cite two simple examples, although I do not want to get distracted by Gaza.