Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South-Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

To clarify for our guests, the permanent members of the committee do not get a veto or anything like that. It is just priority in terms of who speaks first.

First, to pick up on Dr. Burke’s point, last week, in the context of one of the members of the committee saying they had received some abuse online and so on for their pro-neutrality position, I said it was important that this debate be conducted in a respectful way. I agree entirely with Dr. Burke's remarks. The word “agent” did not leap off the page at me in the course of last week’s session, but I would say that was wrong. I have no reason to doubt his honour or positive intentions, regardless of whatever disagreements we may have. It should be possible to have a productive discussion, and I hope this is not the last engagement we have. We are starting with the triple lock and the proposed legislation relating to it, but it is an ambition of this committee generally to ensure that the areas of security and defence get an awful lot more attention than they may have in recent years.

I will start with Dr. Power. His use of the term “overly legalistic” was quite interesting, and it is an important point. Some of the discussion on the triple lock and the examples that have been given relate to humanitarian evacuation and drug interdiction. The Department of Defence has told us that strictly speaking the triple lock does not prevent humanitarian evacuation, and I suspect that, strictly speaking, it does not prevent drug interdiction either, but perhaps it may have been the interpretation of Attorneys General, as Mr. Power cited, who, with an abundance of caution, advised that we need to be particularly cautious in that regard. I appreciate that Mr. Power’s position is that the triple lock should not be retained, but I imagine he would be of the view that it would be possible to amend the proposed legislation to clarify the potential to deploy Irish troops for humanitarian evacuation or drug interdiction without removing the requirement for a UN mandate for deployment of international forces.