Professor John Maguire:

On the motivation and to bring in an academic concept, I am shocked by what the Senator says about my colleagues. I am not in that online world but it is appalling that it is happening. In my submission, I talk about the idea of informal co-optation and that is really important. It is very clear that there was a perception from the 1960s onwards that we had to get into the EEC, particularly if Britain did not get in. It would have been a disaster not to get in. T.K. Whitaker was quite explicit, not publicly but within the Government and with others, that even if we were told we had to join NATO, we ought not to refuse. That is important because that sets the ground perception. I see that from governments from then on, and they said it to us at every referendum, if you do not pass this or pass this, we will be thrown out or we will lose various goodies.

There has been a process whereby lines of power have been laid down without public scrutiny, which is much more insidious. I have never been worried about Ireland joining NATO. It does not need to and it will not try but it has effectively established this partnership. In 2013, the Green Paper on Defence suggested that "NATO has become in effect the ISO [the industrial standard] of the military world".

What is planned for the Arctic, by the way, is as frightening as what the Senator talks about with the exoatmospheric weapons. Everyone's reaction to a melting North Pole is how can we fight battles there over rare earths rather than how do we stop trashing the one planet on which we live.

On the referendum one, I have always been iffy on that. Why? Where will it come from and how will it be crafted? Would it genuinely come from a commitment to neutrality? I am all for having it but I do not want to be in a situation where finally, something is held and is passed by the people and we are then told "now you have what you wanted, what are you complaining about?". I am not opposed to the idea in principle; I am very worried about how it might work out.