Mr. Ciarán Murphy:

Certainly, there was a discussion in this House about whether those changes affected our neutrality, particularly in the case of the 2006 Act because it broadened the definition and also gave circumstances where the Defence Forces could be deployed without the provision of a UN Security Council resolution. The reason for that was that those situations existed and the UN Security Council would not be concerned about them because they did not represent a threat to international peace and security. Certainly, yes, there was discussion around it, including in this House, but the conclusion was that it was not affecting us, even though we expanded quite significantly the definition of an international United Nations force over that period. As for how that definition came about, we went back through 55 years of UN Security Council resolutions and looked at every single provision that authorised or established a force.

They used all sorts of terms. There was a massive expansion in the definition of what constituted an international UN force at that time but what never changed was the requirement for, or the prerequisite of, a Security Council resolution in some form or other. The problem now is that we do not have those.