Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)

Professor Murphy mentioned the ambiguous language around the kind of force to which we might be deployed. We heard terms like not just EU-led and NATO-led but coalition of the willing from the Department of Defence in its testimony last week. Will he comment on the concerns about the kind of force and the lack of any clear guardrails about what kind of force or who we may partner with? Many countries have very different military mandates from Ireland. I ask him to comment on that in connection with the 2021 Act, which uses similar language such as "any force" in the context of delegation of command. This Act provided for a Minister to delegate command of a force - an Irish overseas contingent - to the commander of an overseas force we are part of. I ask for those to be put together. What kind of force would that be, what would the command structure be and what might the accountability structures be? There are question marks around that.

Peacekeeping was mentioned. The term was expanded. There is peacekeeping and peace enforcement, with the latter involving active conflict, but in the Bill we also see new language introduced, namely, "strengthening international security". This is not peacekeeping nor even peace enforcement after conflict, but "strengthening international security". This is again a very ambiguous phrase. Others on the panel may wish to comment on concerns. Could that for example mean military action for the purposes of securing interests, such as access to resources? I think the EU navy was deployed to protect commercial shipping in the Red Sea, as another example. I ask Professor Murphy to comment on the "strengthening international security" phrase. It is proactive, so it allows for changing from the situation we have now to one where there is a different set of security arrangements. I am interested in those two phrases.

Something Professor Murphy said that was interesting, which I was not aware of, though perhaps I misheard, was that it is already the case that if there is consent other bodies can engage in peacekeeping. This means that if, for example, a number of regional actors want to engage in peacekeeping and have the consent of the parties involved they can do so and they do not have a Security Council bind in that regard. I ask him to elaborate on those three points.

I have one other point to come back to him on afterwards given he is a former peacekeeper. I might go to Dr. Devine on this as well. I am interested in the research on the people's understanding of neutrality because it is core. That understanding is core, as well as peacekeepers' understanding, that is, former soldiers' understanding of peacekeeping and of their mandate and how important that is.