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

I first want to put a position on the record. Statements have been made to the effect that the proposed legislation does not affect neutrality and that it is irrelevant to it. I do not think they are the same. It is Dr. Burke's position that in the final assessment, because of various safeguards that he believes exist institutionally and constitutionally, and international law and so on, Irish neutrality, insofar as it exists - and perhaps that is questionable - is unchanged by what is proposed in the general scheme. That is a different position from that held by those who have tried to suggest it is irrelevant to neutrality. Political representatives in these Houses have suggested it is irrelevant. I do not think there is any way you can stretch plain English words to suggest that the legislation which governs how Irish troops are deployed is irrelevant to neutrality. It is clearly relevant and salient. I am not making that assertion against the witnesses but I have heard public representatives at this committee and elsewhere make that suggestion. It is plainly not irrelevant.

Dr. Burke did not get the opportunity to address the question I asked earlier. It seems to me to potentially be the case, with politics and so on, that there may be consequences for small countries. I am not so much thinking of high-profile and hot wars because the politics around those are different. For smaller scale deployments of a kind that may not previously have been anticipated by the Irish Government, are there circumstances in which Ireland or other countries could conceivably find themselves under pressure to participate despite the fact it might not align with their policy of political philosophy? In the real world, pressure can come on a country because of various things that other countries might feel are owed to them in terms of trade, politics and so on.