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

I welcome the witnesses, as well as Mr. Roger Cole. My first question has been partially answered. The Peace and Neutrality Alliance submission underlines very clearly its view that the legislation as currently framed - and we are dealing with the general scheme rather than the full legislation - could conceivably be unconstitutional. Could the witnesses expand on that?

There has been some discussion about the intentions of this Government. It is not necessarily about this Government. One has to consider future Governments when one frames legislation. Removing the triple lock potentially exposes a future Irish Government to significant pressure from other major countries in the EU or NATO regarding the deployment of troops. Does removing the triple lock expose Ireland to greater pressure diplomatically and politically?

The legislation very significantly hinges on the removal of triple lock. I do not believe it is about the amendment or adjustment of the triple lock. As far as I am concerned, it is about its removal. That removes the need for a UN mandate and, therefore, without a UN mandate, we are looking at more or less three things. They are a multilateral group of countries operating together, an EU mission or a NATO mission. Regarding NATO, could the witnesses give an outline of their sense of where NATO is deployed and the nature of the type of deployment? How do they see future EU missions being deployed? The majority of people here and the majority of people in the country support membership of the EU for a variety of reasons - social, economic and so on. However, they also have concerns about the direction of the EU regarding defence, security and potential militarisation. I do not know if there is always an awareness of the type of missions the EU has deployed on. Ireland has not always participated in them because of our neutrality, to the extent that we have neutrality, but I am not sure that there is always an awareness. The witnesses spoke about Mali. Are there other examples in terms of missions led by the EU that would cause concern that if Irish troops were to participate in, we could no longer categorise Ireland as being neutral in such circumstances?