Mr. Stephen Kelly:

In my view, no, because we in PANA advocate positive neutrality, that is, remaining outside of other countries' wars but being robust in standing up for the United Nations and international law. The Russian invasion breached the UN Charter so there was no problem condemning it. We have to be clear that there is a contrived distinction made between so-called political and so-called military neutrality. We advocate neutrality under international law, and under international law there is just neutrality. That is how it is set out in the Hague Conventions and in customary international law. When people say you cannot be neutral because you condemn this, that or the other, it is a misunderstanding of what neutrality means. Neutrality has never meant that you have to maintain strict impartiality in every single view you take. Even in 1939, when the legislation providing for our neutrality was going through the Dáil, de Valera expressed the view that Irish people would naturally sympathise with Poles as they were fighting off the German invaders. That misunderstanding has never been what neutrality has meant.